The Panthers handed RPI its first loss of the season yesterday on Peter Kohn Field.  Balanced scoring, excellent riding and solid defense were able to carry the day for Middlebury.

RPI is under new/old leadership these days with the rehiring of their former coach Jim Townsend.  Some of you who played in the late 90's and early 00's might remember him for his antics on the sidelines.  Jim had moved on to McDaniel College for the past 5 or so years before returning to RPI this year.  He had the team prepared for our game and has had them playing very disciplined lacrosse all year. 

Offensively we moved the ball well, got great looks all day and had it not been for the play of their goalies the score would have been even more lopsided. Rory Sanborn (McDonogh, MD) had two big goals for us and received the game ball.  Both goals came on right handed, time and room shots where Rory was able to step in and let it fly. 

Peter Mellen and Dave Campbell (the player) both did a great job for us facing off and continued to give us a big advantage in possession time over the course of the game.

One of the biggest strengths of this year's team is how hard we ride and I would say that it starts with arguably our most talented player, Jim Cabrera.  Jim rides harder than any attackman I've ever coached and is relentless once a goalie makes a save or the ball goes on the ground.  Yesterday Jim was held to one goal and one assist but he had a hand in a number of successful rides for us.

Defensively, our starting unit of James Guay, Charlie Kolb and Chris Mejia has begun to gel after finally getting a chance to play together for a few games.  The play of our long stick midfielders has been a strength as well with both Glenn Bickley and John Sales making big plays for us in the middle of the field.  Glenn scored a goal yesterday after picking up a ground ball off of the wing on the face off and taking it hard to the cage.  He also narrowly missed a second goal after putting the ball on the ground on a ride where the goalie was out of the cage.  Glenn picked the ball up at midfield, sprinted to the restraining line and let loose a shot that bounced off the pipe!  These guys are all doing some nice things for us but the good news is that we still have a lot of room for improvement and I fully expect this group to keep getting better as the season moves along.

We'll get back to work today as we have plenty of things we need to work on for Saturday but it was nice to come away with another solid win over a quality opponent.