I'm happy to report that we finally got over the hump yesterday against the Thoroughbreds and played our most complete game of the year.  Going into the game both teams have been struggling but Skidmore had more NESCAC victories than us with wins over Bates, Williams, and Trinity.  For us to be up 16-0 heading into the fourth quarter was a welcome surprise.

Credit our captains, our seniors, and our team in general for continuing to believe in each other after everything we've been through this season. When we jumped out on Skidmore early I was interested to see how their team would respond and how our guys would handle a big lead.  As it turned out, our guys kept their foot on the gas and didn't give Skidmore a glimmer of hope that they'd be able to get back in the game.  I'm sure it's hard to get a feel for this team from the outside looking in (it's been hard enough to figure this group out seeing them each day!) but make no mistake, these guys care about each other and about our program.  Our guys have continued to show up to practice each day ready to make each other better and their determination has finally showed up on the scoreboard.  I was ecstatic for our older guys to get the win yesterday.

I haven't had many opportunities to praise individual performances this season so I'm going to make sure to get plenty in with this write up.

As has been the case over the past month or so, once again Brian Foster was outstanding at the face off x.  He went 12 for 15 yesterday against a very, very good face off specialist for Skidmore who came into the game at 65%.  Brian is now up to 65% for the year and is first in the league in that category, we've come a long way from last year where we were close to last in the league in face off %.  Brian has made some significant strides in terms of his lacrosse IQ in the past year and even during the course of this season, I never thought I'd see the day when he'd be able to pick up 10gb's in a game!  Coach Brakeley's hard work with this group is finally paying off.   It's also worth mentioning that our poles on the wings are outstanding at getting the ball off the ground, Billy Chapman, Darric White, and Zach Dayno are all getting the job done and allowing Brian to have the season he's having so far.

While I'm at it, Zach Dayno is having an amazing senior year for us at long stick midfield.  He shut down Skidmore's top midfielder, Michael Perlow, who came into the game with 30 goals and held him scoreless through three quarters (Perlow quickly scored 2 goals in the 4th quarter against our back up defense).  You won't find a better kid than Zach, a walk-on Feb his freshman year who's now been on the field for us for four years and has taken his game to another level this season.  He's an absolute pleasure to coach and we'll miss him next year.

A few other performances worth noting on the defensive end came from Nate Gaudio in the cage and Matt Rayner at close defense.  Nate held Skidmore scoreless through 3 quarters and came up with 9 saves.   He's continued to improve all season long and is starting to play big for us each time out there, he made all of his saves look easy yesterday.  Also, it was great to get Matt back on the field again as we inserted him off the bench for some stretches yesterday.  He's been out since the Bowdoin game and after giving it a go in practice on Monday decided to give it a shot yesterday as well.  He came up with a few nice ground balls and brought his typical physical presence to the defense, hopefully he'll be able to play again these last few games.  I think everyone was fired up for Matt to be able to play in another game during his senior season.  As I've said before, I can't imagine someone handling a tough situation better than how Matt has approached this year, what a leader.

Offensively we finally were able to get some shots to fall, we also continued to generate a ton of looks.  Through three quarters we had taken 58 shots!  For us on offense these days it all starts with Stew Kerr, he's now scored 14 goals in our last four games.  Stew is the hardest working guy on the team, in fact I just fed him balls for 45 minutes this morning as he had a few things he wanted to work on today.  There's nothing flashy in his game, he shoots the ball hard, accurately, and has worked on his release so he can get it in and out of his stick quickly.  He's also spent a lot of time working on being able to create his own shot coming around the cage which he's been able to incorporate these past few games.   I hope the younger guys are taking notes!

Another guy that had a nice day was junior Mike Giordano.  Mike has been our leading scorer all year long but has struggled a bit with having to be our #1 attackman and with drawing the opponents top pole each game.  He finished with 3 goals and 2 assists yesterday, definitely one of his best games of the year.

Finally, the most impressive thing I saw out of one our players yesterday came when the captains handed out the game ball.  The game ball went to Brian Foster as he's been keeping us in games lately and is playing the best lacrosse of his career.  The captain that wanted to present the game ball to Brian was Peter Jennings.  Peter and Brian split face off duties for us last year and as we've gotten further into the season this year, Brian has been taking almost all of our draws each game.  With our other face off specialist being down for a good chunk of the season, it's been Peter and Brian going at it each day before practice and during our face off scrimmages.  While Brian has been getting all of the credit and while Peter has seen his playing time decrease this year, Peter has brought a great attitude to practice each day and has continued to push Brian and the rest of his teammates all spring.  To see Peter as excited as he was to give Brian the game ball yesterday was an awesome moment and I couldn't have been prouder of Peter and of our team.

Unfortunately we no longer control our own destiny as far as the NESCAC playoff picture goes after our loss on Saturday and with the results from yesterday.   However, as I've been talking to the team about the past few weeks, all we need to focus on is what we can control.  Right now, all we can control is how we practice these next few days and how we compete on Saturday against the Mules.  Ultimately that's all that matters and I hope we have a great couple of days here before heading up to Maine to take on a very good Colby squad.