January 31, 2010
Important weekend for the Jumbos, home for a change ----- Friday night Castleton State came to town
and after one period we felt they should have stayed in Vermont - they outshot us 19-3 but thanks to
our ever present goalie, Scott Barchard, we only gave up one goal mid way through the period and
applied virtually no pressure on CS in their end ----- we came out a little better in the second period
but were still being outplayed a bit - at 16:08 we tied it up after some hard work on a goal by
Davis assisted by Vitale and Derosa but this lead was very short lived - 1:23 later CS went ahead again
finishing off one of their many 3 on 2's - this seemed to wake us up a bit but not enough for us to
score before the period ended - in the third period, though not dominating we picked up the pace a
little and finally capitalized on some poor defensive coverage allowing John to rip a shot at 8:47
tying up the game, Vitale and Story assisted - as in the past we played better as the game went on
save for one flurry by CS that seemed to last forever - how ever no scoring for the rest of regulation
and again we go into overtime ----- the overtime was significant only for the lack of quality scoring
chances by either team - so there it ended 3-3
Saturday afternoon Skidmore came to town having lost to Conn College (5-3) I think, the night
before --- The first period once again was dominated by the opponent for the first 15 minutes
and once again resulted in only one goal at 14:31 - this time we respond fairly quickly to tie
it up at 17:58 after some nice work by Diaco (G) and Derosa - not to be outdone Skidmore responds
28 seconds later to go up by one again adding strength to the to my theory that the first minute
after a goal is the most dangerous time for the team just scored (not an exceptionally brilliant
observation) - anyway to get back on track --- 1-2 going into the second period - Skidmore continue
to play well, we hold the fort with a "we" being a lot of Barchard, get a few chances, not as many as
Skidmore but no scoring in the period --- in the third as usual we start to play better and tie the
game up at 7:50 Diaco from Metcalfe - we continue to apply more pressure in spurts and finally go
ahead for the first time at 12:27 after some great hustle by Vitale who literally crawled over the
goalie to slip one in, Diaco and Story got the assists - from this point on both teams played well
but disaster struck with 4:09 left when we picked up a boarding major, 5 minutes - visions of UM
Boston ring in my head - this time the opponent did not pull their goalie for a 6 on 4, stuck with
the 5 on 4 and tied it up with 1:54 to go - we killed that off without a shot and into OT we go
again, this time with 51 seconds left on the penalty - well we kill the rest of the penalty, play
evens up, not many chances at all until the last 90 seconds or so when we keep the puck in the
Skidmore end, have a few pretty good chances but no scoring
Oh well, it is two point the hard way ---- that makes the games this weekend bigger than ever
relative to our chances of making the playoff - we now stand 4-6-3 in the league and 8-7-3 overall -
this weekend Wesleyan Friday night and Trinity Saturday night, 7:00 and 7:45 respectively - try to
make a game , Ben
[Return to Coach Sands' Updates Index]