We took one on the chin the other day down in Middletown by a score of 9-8 in OT. Both teams played hard and our guys showed that they’re ready to compete this year after battling back from a 6-3 halftime deficit. Wesleyan did a nice job of running their deliberate offense throughout the game and made the most of their opportunities in the first half. After some defensive adjustments on our end, we held them to 1 settled 6v6 goal in the 2nd half.

While some credit needs to go to Wesleyan’s goalie who played the game of his career, offensively we took a step back on Saturday. We didn’t play team offense as exhibited by our 2 assisted goals out of 8 scored on the day. The good news is that even with us playing as selfishly as we did, we still had plenty of opportunities to put more than 8 up on the board and I fully expect us to play more cohesively from here on out.

The two guys who showed up again for us were David Hild (4 goals, 1 assist) and Matt Rayner (6gb’s). David got us going in the 2nd half by scoring our first 3 goals which all came off of dodges from x. He’s become a very physical dodger and is using every bit of his 6’4 -215 lb frame to get where he wants on the field. As for Matt, we had him up on the wing on face offs and guarding Wesleyan’s #1 offensive player all game long. Unfortunately for Matt, he was called once again for an unnecessary roughness penalty after hitting a kid too well and too hard. It’s amazing how many legal hits we’re penalized for and how few chippy/high/late hits are called against our opponents.

Another factor in the game was at the face of x where we continue to hover in the 30% range. We’ve spent as much time facing off in practice this year as I can ever remember but unfortunately we’re still not seeing the results, yet...

Before I move on to Conn, thanks to Bobo, Rod Fox, and all the young alums who made it out to the game on Saturday. It was nice to have a good Middlebury crowd on hand to support the guys, we wish we could have pulled it out for you.

Next up are the Camels who come to town on Saturday in what should be an interesting matchup. While they play Union down at Georgetown tomorrow, they’ve started off the year 0-2 in the league and are struggling to score goals so far. They’ve played a soft zone against us the past few years which has been pretty effective and always bring their A-game against us. Should be fun....