G'day,
We arrived back late Sunday night from a weekend road trip down in Virginia. We played the Wingate Bulldogs on Sunday at the Collegiate School in Richmond. The drive down was the quickest I have been on, only taking about six and a half hours. When we arrived we checked into the hotel and went for a pre-game practice.
The weather was warmer than up in New York so it was nice to practice in shorts for a change. Our practice was brief but well run and everyone was feeling good. The whole team was anxious to begin our season and knowing it was only a day away had us excited to say the least.
Our whole week of practice went very well and everyone was focused until the final whistle on Sunday afternoon. We jumped out to a 2-0 lead on goals by Austin Carino and Keith Clancy, who scored his first career goal for NYiT. Wingate answered with a man up goal to cut the lead 2-1. An 8 goal spurt including another 3 goals from Austin Carino put us ahead 10-1.
To Wingate's credit they fought all the way until the final minute. The score was misleading as Wingate battled on every groundball and made every play a competitive one.
NYiT's defense came into Sunday's game with some questions but certainly seemed to answer a lot of them. Pat Rogin, Andrew Maurer, and Josh Kacprzak held down the fort infront of Chris Powers who made several key saves including a one-on-one stuff on the crease.
Maybe the key for the win was our face-off play. Coach Kaley threw all three of our face-off men (Pete Raab, Paul Gibson, and Jeff Hunter) at Wingate and it seemed to work as they combined to win 73% of the draws. Controlling the ball is paramount in lacrosse so our face-off crew is to be congratulated.
Also contributing were Keith Henderson (4 goals 1 assist), Matt Messina (1 goal 2 assists) Kevin Hennessy (2 goals 1 assist) and Jeremy Hobson (2 goals). MVP of the game went to Matt Sullivan who seemed to have to upper hand in his match up all day scoring 3 big goals to build our lead.
The team felt good about our first outing as we drove back to Long Island but it is much too early to get over excited. This coming Sunday we will face a Saint Anselm team that seems to improve leaps and bounds every year we play them so we expect another difficult game.
Check in same time next week to see if we were up to the challenge. Thanks for reading. Take care.
- Rob
We arrived back late Sunday night from a weekend road trip down in Virginia. We played the Wingate Bulldogs on Sunday at the Collegiate School in Richmond. The drive down was the quickest I have been on, only taking about six and a half hours. When we arrived we checked into the hotel and went for a pre-game practice.
The weather was warmer than up in New York so it was nice to practice in shorts for a change. Our practice was brief but well run and everyone was feeling good. The whole team was anxious to begin our season and knowing it was only a day away had us excited to say the least.
Our whole week of practice went very well and everyone was focused until the final whistle on Sunday afternoon. We jumped out to a 2-0 lead on goals by Austin Carino and Keith Clancy, who scored his first career goal for NYiT. Wingate answered with a man up goal to cut the lead 2-1. An 8 goal spurt including another 3 goals from Austin Carino put us ahead 10-1.
To Wingate's credit they fought all the way until the final minute. The score was misleading as Wingate battled on every groundball and made every play a competitive one.
NYiT's defense came into Sunday's game with some questions but certainly seemed to answer a lot of them. Pat Rogin, Andrew Maurer, and Josh Kacprzak held down the fort infront of Chris Powers who made several key saves including a one-on-one stuff on the crease.
Maybe the key for the win was our face-off play. Coach Kaley threw all three of our face-off men (Pete Raab, Paul Gibson, and Jeff Hunter) at Wingate and it seemed to work as they combined to win 73% of the draws. Controlling the ball is paramount in lacrosse so our face-off crew is to be congratulated.
Also contributing were Keith Henderson (4 goals 1 assist), Matt Messina (1 goal 2 assists) Kevin Hennessy (2 goals 1 assist) and Jeremy Hobson (2 goals). MVP of the game went to Matt Sullivan who seemed to have to upper hand in his match up all day scoring 3 big goals to build our lead.
The team felt good about our first outing as we drove back to Long Island but it is much too early to get over excited. This coming Sunday we will face a Saint Anselm team that seems to improve leaps and bounds every year we play them so we expect another difficult game.
Check in same time next week to see if we were up to the challenge. Thanks for reading. Take care.
- Rob
G'day rabil!
good luck this weekend! tickle that twine real nice like