February 21, 2009

Last night we played UMass at their place, they were coming off a 3-2 win over Middlebury - there were a lot of shots in the first period most by UMass, we however opened the scoring on a PP at 9:50 right off a faceoff in the offensive zone Cooper on the faceoff to the points Clark then Davis for the score, bang bang - we continued to hold off Umass until 19:15 when they tied it up - we feel pretty good at 1-1 - in the second Barchard is holding the fort but it can only last so long as UMass finally goes ahead 2-1 at 11:36 - at 12:30 we get a break on a big neutral zone turnover by UMass, Resor feeds Derosa for the breakaway and we are in a tie game - UMass peppers us but to no avail for the rest of the period - at the end of this period we feel really good that we are in a 2-2 game despite being outshot 2-1 - the third period is more of the same, the puck in our zone much of the time, Barchard coming up big and us with very few chances - as in the past few gems we seem to get better as the third period reaches a halfway point, suddenly at 13:50 Vitale and Antonelli combined for a typical Tufts goal that results from some very hard work around the net - the scoreboard says Tufts leads 3-2 - we continue to play well and with 3 minutes to play UM pulls their goalie and we respond with an open net goal at 17:43 Resor from Clark - that is it, the game ends 4-2 ---- they have game stars and Barchard is the obvious #1 Resor was #2, sorry Nick but Scott should have been #1,2 and 3 ----- that is it, we are in the playoffs and will play Amherst next Saturday out there - it is good that we played in and did not back in - the other play off games will be Hamilton at Middlebury (Hamilton will get a preview by playing Middlebury today) and likely Bowdoin at Williams and Conn at Trinity, the latter two could switch depending on today's results but that is what the Vegas line is right now ---- in the meantime we play Babson at their place at 4:00 today, they have much at stake for playoff home ice in their division - we were without Story last night and he will miss today's game and it is probable that Amico will be out also - Amherst did beat Middlebury last night, 4-3, scoring four quick goals in the first period and despite being outshot 57-23, another example of very good goaltending in the league

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