Just about anything could happen with this team from here on out and I won't be the least bit surprised.  After the games we've been through this year, I've learned a few things about our group.  First, never count them out.  Something we've been talking about for a few weeks now is that this team believes in themselves and in each other.  Second, we have great leadership starting with Mike Stone, Dave Campbell, and Pete Britt and then throughout the rest of the senior class and down through the rest of the team.

Finally, we're inconsistent and have gone through stretches in each game this year where we've lost focus of what we need to be doing out on the field.  Hopefully we can sharpen that up going into the playoffs.

As bad as it looked and felt to be down 6-2 at the half and then 8-2 in the 3rd qtr, we actually had generated better looks than Williams and more of them in the first half. Unfortunately we didn't cash in on many of them and credit their goalie who made some great saves in the first quarter.  At one point I counted that we had taken 18 shots and only scored once while they had taken 7 and scored on 5 of them.  In addition to that, we only won 2 out of 10 face offs in the first half. 

We needed a spark and it came in the form of Tom Petty going hard to the cage twice in a row to get us to within 4 goals.  Mike Stone caught a nice feed from Skyler Hopkins for the next goal as he roofed it over the Williams goalie.  The next two were Pete Smith in transition, the first was him making a nice hitch and go move to get to his left hand and to the middle of the field. His 2nd goal came after Tom Petty chased down a defenseman in the corner of the field and forced a poor clearing pass that Pete Smith picked off and finished on the doorstep.   Matt Ferrer would break his cold streak with the next two goals (it had been 5 games since he had scored), the first on a great feed from Skyler and the next on a nice read by Pete Smith to take advantage of a 2v1 situation.  Matt's goal would tie things up at 9.  Mike Stone would then cap things off with a rare right handed dodge against their back up lsm which he stuck in the upper corner.   We took the lead with 15 seconds left in the 3rd and unfortunately they were able to win the ensuing face off, come down and tie it up before the end of the 3rd.

Williams has an excellent sophomore attackman named David Hawley who was NESCAC rookie of the year last year, he ended up with 4 goals yesterday and would score the next goal off of a great dodge in transition to put them up 11-10.  On the next face off the ball squirted back into our defensive end where freshman Matt Rayner scooped it up, didn't hesitate and went straight towards the Williams goal.  He shot a high bounce shot that tucked up right under the cross bar to tie things up at 11.

Skyler Hopkins would have a big hand in the final two goals. The first of which came off of a nice feed from Tim Cahill where Sky caught it lefty, stepped in from about 12 and ripped it over the goalie's shoulder.  The second was on a nice dodge from up top by Skyler where he noticed the Williams defense all collapsing into the crease so he skipped it to the weak side pipe where Tom Petty was waiting and finished the play.  Definitely a high degree of difficulty on that one but the reward was worth the risk.

All in all it was just a gutsy, determined effort by our guys.  I credit Tom Petty with not only coming up with those two big goals but making some unbelievable hustle plays in the riding game to get us the ball back.  We held them to 2 for 7 clearing in the 2nd half, they just couldn't get the ball out of their end.  We did end up going 9 for 18 on face offs in the 2nd half but it was definitely a low point for us as a team on the day.  We also won the ground ball battle pretty significantly 49-28. Without those extra possessions off the gb's and rides, we don't win this game. 

Matt Ferrer won the game ball for his two big goals and to acknowledge the boost he gave the team.  We're going to need him down the stretch.

Not much time to get ready for the next one, we have Amherst up here tomorrow at 1pm.  We just had a nice practice/walk through on an absolutely picture perfect day up here and the guys seem pretty loose and ready to go.  We know Amherst would love to play the spoiler so hopefully we can come out and play our game right from the start.

Special thanks to Rod Fox, Craig Westling, and Hieu Nguyen for making the trip to support the team yesterday and give us a few more Panthers in the stands!

Stay tuned...