The
Panthers improved to 6-0 on Saturday after the home opener against a much
improved Colby squad. We were treated to some arctic temperatures for the
game with a brisk wind blowing from the North. This game was a tale of
two halves. Colby dictated tempo and out hustled us in the 1st half, while
in the 2nd we were able to get out and run a bit and started getting the
ball off the ground.
Colby has
two excellent attackmen both hailing from
Colby had
the ball for much of the 1st half as we had a hard time clearing the ball
initially and weren't coming up with many ground balls. They were patient
and were able to execute their offense better than we were able to execute what
we want to do defensively. We gave up two strong handed sweeps to
their midfielders for goals and two feeds inside which was one of the things we
wanted to take away against the mules. Their 5th goal of the 1st
half was a garbage goal after we had stripped the ball and didn't take bodies
on the crease. In the 2nd half we were able to get some stops and more
importantly we didn't give them any second chances as we came up with most of
the ground balls and turned those into transition opportunities for our
offense. Chris Mejia had his best game of the season at close
defense by creating a few turnovers and by getting the ball up quickly to our
defensive middies. We ended up getting goals out of Frank Granara, Jeff
Begin and Matt Virtue who all run the field extremely well and played some
great on ball defense.
On offense
we continue to be a balanced scoring team with 9 different goal scorers and 5
different players with assists. Skyler Hopkins had his best game of the
year with a few nice feeds and two big goals. Tom Petty, Mike Stone,
and Jim Cabrera also added two goals apiece. Once again it's great to see
Mike Stone be able to get some good looks even when the other team is shutting
him off for the entire game.
Next up is
a Williams squad that has suffered some tough losses so far this year but have
the talent to be one of the top teams in our league. We're looking
forward to having a few guys back this week for the game and have our eyes on
the Thomsen Trophy!