What a weekend! Those that made it back to Middlebury were treated to an exciting game on Saturday, a wonderful alumni event at American Flatbread, and a successful (there were no injuries) Alumni game on Sunday morning. Perhaps the most exciting takeaway from the weekend is it seems we've finally snapped our alumni weekend curse of playing one of our worst games of the year in front of all of you coming back!

The story of the game and at this point in the season is that we're starting to click and to play the game at a very high level on both ends of the field. We've been building to this point over the last few weeks with our emphasis on pushing the ball up field but there was a moment in practice last Thursday when I knew we had just reached a completely different level. The speed at which we're now playing the game and the awareness being exhibited by our guys in how they're playing off each other is fun to watch. Unfortunately for the guys, now that I know what they're capable of, they're going to have to deal with some much higher expectations from me! The great news is that I don't think anyone outside of our program is talking about how well we're playing right now. After last season we're flying completely under the radar and we love it.

There were some outstanding performances against the Mules but perhaps none better than Billy Chapman. His stat line doesn't jump out at you, 1 assist, 6gb's, 4 caused turnovers as a close defenseman but he was everywhere on the field for us on Saturday. The confidence Billy has getting the ball off the ground and carrying it up field is contagious and probably terrifying for our opponents at this point in the season. He even made a stick side low save when Nate was caught out of the cage on one play. On a few plays Billy ended up at x on offense backing up shots and handling against poles, he wasn't just the best player on the field on Saturday; he may be one of the best couple of players in our league right now.

The game ball was awarded to senior Erich Pfeffer after scoring three goals against the Mules. We've been waiting for another offensive middie to step up and Pfeff did just that on Saturday. His performance is even more impressive when you consider he didn't get any sleep for a few nights last week while finishing up his final project for his Architecture major. It's great to see a senior step up and to play that way at this point in the season, hopefully Pfeff can keep it up tomorrow against the Ephs.

Other performances worth noting came from Andrew Metros (3g), Stew Kerr (2g), Jon Broome (2g, 2a) and Mike Giordano (3g, 2a). A few of the looks between Mike Giordano and Jon Broome were highlight reel material. The one I'll always remember from this game came at the end of the 3rd quarter. The play started as Billy Chapman caught the ball over the midline and threw it down into the box to Jon. At that point it was a semi-slow break, the defense wasn't settled, but was all getting in the hole. For us this was and is a situation that we want to exploit. We've been working on all different types of looks in these situations from the start of the season and the guys are starting to become pretty creative in applying them, none more so than Chappy. After Chappy threw the ball to Jon, he continued to run down and set an on-ball pick for him. As Jon came off the pick running left handed to the goal he skipped the ball to the backside pipe where Mike was waiting to one-time it in for our 15th goal of the day.

Our effort on ground balls and in the riding game has become a difference maker at this point in the season. We lost the face off battle the other day by 4 but still ended up out ground balling Colby 46-30. We also held them to 15 for 25 clearing the ball (60%). To put that number in perspective, with the new rule changes this year our goal is to clear the ball over 90% each game. We've reached that goal on a number of occasions and are clearing the ball at 89% on the season. Colby was clearing the ball at 85% coming into our game. Our style of play doesn't allow our opponent to relax and our energy on Saturday was off the charts. I have always felt that this relentless style of play embodies Middlebury lacrosse and there were a few ground ball scrums on Saturday that illustrated the kind of hustle and determination our guys have when the ball hits the deck.

Going forward, I want to acknowledge our senior class and especially our captain's for putting us in a position to control our own destiny and lock up the #1 seed in the NESCAC tourney with a win tomorrow. To think back to where we were a year ago going into the Williams game knowing that our season was going to end that day win or lose…….What an unbelievable turnaround by this group.

Thanks to all of you that made it back this weekend for a memorable couple of days for everyone involved with the program. I hope the guys made you proud to be a Panther on Saturday.

We can't wait for our trip down to Williamstown tomorrow and hope to keep the Thomsen Trophy up in VT for the 6th year in a row!