It was a great weekend to be a Panther down in Medford Mass as we defeated the #1 seed on their home turf on Saturday and then the #2 seed on Sunday to win the NESCAC Championship!  We had a great crowd on hand for both games and the weather was ideal for this time of year, in the 60's and sunny for the most part.

The team played with tremendous heart and energy the entire weekend and have embraced the Middlebury mentality for this time of year in that we're playing for at least one more day together.  Saturday's game had a few momentum shifts as we jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first quarter after goals by freshman Jeff Begin (St. John's Prep, MA), Skyler Hopkins and Nick Bastis. By midway through the 2nd quarter we found ourselves down 4-3.  Mike Stone's goal with 6 seconds left in the 2nd quarter would tie things up at 4 going into halftime. Mike has emerged as one of the best if not the top midfielder in the NESCAC this season.

In the third quarter we opened up a 3 goal lead off of goals by juniors Rory Sanborn and Frank Granara (Norwell, MA) as well as another lefty tally from Stone.  Frank's goal was a huge lift to the team as it was his first of the year.  One of our team goals going into the weekend was to push the ball in transition with our defensive midfielders and to take advantage of any unsettled situations that presented themselves.  Frank did a great job of pushing the ball up field and went hard to the goal left handed putting the ball inside the far pipe.  Frank has been consistent all year on the defensive end and has had a number of assists in transition so it was nice to see him finally notch one in the goal column and win the game ball from the team!

The fourth quarter got a little hectic as we had a number of looks in transition that we didn't capitalize on and had some issues clearing the ball. Let's just say it made for an exciting finish.  Tufts would end up scoring with 27 seconds remaining to get within a goal at 8-7.  Pete Mellen did a great job of tying up their face off man and keeping the ball on the ground for a good 10 seconds before anyone had a chance to pick it up.

I wouldn't be doing this game justice if I didn't mention the role that Alex Palmisano played in keeping Tufts off the scoreboard.  The stat sheet reads that he only had 13 saves but after watching the film last night and doing my own stats I have him for 18 stops.   He made some tough saves look easy and then came up with a few that he had absolutely no business making.  The way he's playing right now instills a great deal of confidence in our defense and causes the opposing team's offense to tighten up and look for the perfect shot.  On to the NESCAC Championship game against a familiar opponent, the Wesleyan Cardinals.

For those of you who have seen Wesleyan play over the past few seasons or who had a chance to witness our game against them during alumni weekend, you'll know they play entirely zone defense.  Not only that, but they have one of the best goalies in the country between the pipes which makes it a formidable challenge to put up more than 7 or 8 goals against them.  We had the opportunity to watch Wesleyan dismantle Williams on Saturday in their NESCAC semifinal by a score of 8-0.  Particularly discouraging was the meager 13 shots that Williams managed to take during the course of the game.  We knew we were going to have to come up with more opportunities than that to have a chance to win on Sunday, luckily we were able to muster 52 of them!

This game had a similar feel to the one we played against Tufts on Saturday, we jumped out to a 1-0 and then a 3-1 lead before finding ourselves down 4-3 with a minute to play in the second quarter.  Our first two goals of the game came from Nick Bastis and Skyler Hopkins both in 6v6 settled situations against the zone.  The third was reminiscent of Frank's goal on Saturday as freshman Matt Virtue caught an outlet pass from Frank and streaked up the field for a 4 on 3 fast break.  When nobody from Wesleyan stepped up to play him he stuck a righty shot to the keeper's off stick side to give us the 2 goal lead.  It happened to be Matt's first goal of the season. 

With less than a minute left in the 2nd quarter we had an opportunity in transition that sailed over the cage.  As we backed up the shot and hustled to get a quick restart to take advantage of a good situation on our end, Wesleyan called timeout.   We took this opportunity to draw up a look we thought would be there against the zone. Sure enough as we worked the ball around the perimeter we found Skyler Hopkins rolling up on the backside for what would be the second of his 5 goals on the day.  After winning the ensuing face off and turning the ball over on our offensive end Peter Mellen picked off a clearing pass from Wesleyan and zipped the ball to Skyler Hopkins on the doorstep to give us a 5-4 lead with 2 seconds remaining before halftime.

In the second half we scored the first 3 goals to take a commanding 8-4 lead with the scores coming from Bastis, Stone and Hopkins.  We continued to get some great looks in transition and answered Wesleyan's 5th goal in less than a minute with a fast break goal from Dave Campbell to Skyler Hopkins.  Once again Alex Palmisano was spectacular in the goal for us and had there been an MVP award for the Championship game or the tournament it would have gone to him. 

Overall it was an incredible weekend for our team and the Middlebury contingent on hand in Medford to support the team.  Now it's time to get ready for Mt. Ida in the first round of NCAA's tomorrow.  Mt. Ida is making its first NCAA appearance and will be hungry for a W.