Setting the Stage: It’s April 9th, 2011 and Colby travels to Middletown, CT to take on Wesleyan in an important midseason matchup. Both teams are 2-3 in NESCAC play, though they have taken different roads to get there. Wesleyan started off hot with a road win over Bowdoin and knocked off Middlebury in OT before disaster struck with an unforgivable road loss to Bates followed by a 15-8 drubbing at the hands of Tufts and a close loss to in-state rival Trinity. Colby is coming off an overtime win over Bowdoin and took down Williams to open the year but lost three times between those two wins to Tufts, Trinity and Middlebury. Let’s go to the Bird Cage…
1st Quarter
It’s over a minute from the opening faceoff to Colby’s first attempt at a dodge. Shot clock, shot clock, shot clock…
Colby comes out in a dropback ride, which I hate. You have to be aggressive defending transition and force turnovers to get yourself some easy goals or you tend to lean a lot on your settled offense to get you 8 or 9 goals which is asking a lot. In an entirely unrelated note, Colby is going to lose this one 8-7.
Nobody likes to shoot more with less success than Teddy Citrin. 123 shots for 26 goals last year. Naturally, he takes the first shot of the game, a low angle bouncer that goes wide.
Colby comes down on offense, takes thirty seconds to sub and promptly runs into an easy double team. If you’re just gonna piss the ball away, you might as well do it pushing the tempo, right? Ugh.
Wesleyan picks up the GB out of the double, pushes it the length of the field and Gabe Kelley feeds it down to a pipe attackman for an easy G. A study in contrasts. 1-0 Wesleyan.
Bunker wins the face and we wait another 40 seconds for Colby to start running their offense. It’s the fastest fast kinda-on-the-slower-side game on two feet!
Jennings dunks off a Margolis feed and we’re square at 1. Kelley was ball-watching like a mf’er.
There’s someone on the Colby sideline with #55. Awesome.
Some up and down action, followed by Colby taking 40 seconds to sub again then taking a 15 yard low-to-low shot.
Colby poles > Wesleyan attackman, and it ain’t even close. Over the head checks for days.
Domingos with an extremely savvy coaching move to save a possession. After Colby threw the ball back into the defensive half for reasons that remain unclear, Colby had to force the ball into a box in under ten seconds through a double team. Anticipating the turnover that was coming, Domingos called timeout the moment the ball was touched in. A half a second later, the ball was in a Wesleyan stick. I don’t support the slow down offense, but if you’re going to run it, then you need to make every possession count. Saving a possession there with a timeout is big.
That possession turns into an Ian Deveau goal on a flag down slow whistle situation two minutes later. The ideal slow down offensive possession. 2-1 Colby.
Wesleyan knots it right back up with a superlative individual effort by Max Landow. It’s 2-2 even though Colby has dominated time of possession…
2nd Quarter
Horrendous flag on what should have been a loose ball push. Officiating is the turd in the NESCAC lacrosse punch bowl. It is consistently bad to horrible depending where you are.
Colby screws up their EMO play but still manage to get a goal after they come out of the ground ball scrum and dunk an easy one. 3-2 Mules.
Bunker is killing Wesleyan at the X. Insert DJ Khaled “All I Do Is Win” joke here.
Wesleyan is getting screwed by their home referees right now. Hmmm. A phantom push on good defense gives Colby the ball back after a turnover.
Wesleyan scores their first settled goal after Colby has to slide twice to the same dodger. As a general rule, if you have to send a third guy to the ball, you’re probably fucked. 3-3.
Bunker is winning everything backwards, depriving Colby of another opportunity for some unsettled goals. This probably has something to do with the fact that Bunker has no offensive skill set. I would have taken Ray Witte of Stevenson over Bunker last year and the 13 goals that Witte scored compared to Bunker’s 1 has a lot to do with that.
Not sure why he never gets his due, but John Jennings is one hell of a crease attackman. You’re never going to believe this, but Gabe Kelley is ball-watching again as Jennings cuts and sticks one to make it 4-3 Colby. Starting to see Kyle Menendez parallels…
On cue, Bunker wins the faceoff forward and takes one of his eleven shots on the year. Covington is unfazed.
Another longggggggggg Colby possession ends in a Jennings goal, this time off a dodge past All-NESCAC defenseman Mike Robinson. 5-3 Colby. The ball has been almost exclusively in the Wesleyan defensive end this quarter.
Make-it take-it as Bunker wins again.
The following sequence just happened: a Colby pole threw a wrap check, broke his own stick in half, then collided with the guy who stepped up to play the ball. Wow.
Froats finally answers for Wesleyan with a shot from wayyyyyy downtown. An aside: him being the 2009 NESCAC Rookie of the Year makes even less sense in retrospect.
Halftime. Colby leads 5-4 and from their perspective, the game couldn’t be going much better. Their entire strategy is predicated on Bunker winning around 70% of his faceoffs and being able to dominate the time of possession and the pace of the game. So far, so good.
3rd Quarter
Pole takes the face for Wesleyan in the second half and manages to win it cleanly.
Referees showing extreme unfamiliarity with the quick whistle restart.
A terrible decision to double the ball ends Colby celebrating a 6-4 lead. Really, that couldn’t have been any worse of a decision. There was a pole on the ball, the ballcarrier could clearly see the double coming. Wesleyan gave that one away. We’re less than two minutes into the third quarter and Colby is only going to score one more time the rest of the way.
Elliot Albert gets smoked by Greg McKillop for Colby’s 7th and final goal only 48 seconds later. Not a strong series of events for Albert, the man guilty of the bad decision to double moments earlier.
17 yard shots with a three goal lead don’t make a lot of sense especially when you’re playing the slow down game.
And Wesleyan goes the other way. Gabe Kelley launches a missile from 15 yards. Reiley can’t control the rebound which is momentarily scooped up by a Colby pole before he is stripped. Sam Stanton cleans up the mess and dunks to bring it back to 7-5.
Colby actually generates some unsettled offense but Jennings can’t convert an easy one. When you aren’t getting easy goals in transition, you have to bury every point blank opportunity you get.
Wesleyan caps a disjointed offensive possession with a decent shot on the run from Aidan Daniell that gets by Reilly. I’ve got to imagine that’s one he wishes he could have back. 7-6 Colby.
Covington running the break! Covington running the break!
Wesleyan defense is playing appreciably better in the second half. They’ve figured out how the methodical Colby offense operates.
Gabe Kelley firing away with no conscience.
Clean hit. Flag down against Colby. I have no words.
EMO goal for Wesleyan as they cash in on the bad officiating. Cardinals simply run a variation on the old venerable wheel play. 7-7.
More insane officiating. A crosscheck call on what should have been a loose-ball push leaves Colby down a man again.
Wesleyan botches their wheel on EMO and then fails to back up their shot. Colby clears as their short stick splits the double and turns on the jets.
Robinson gets smoked by McKillop but McKillop can’t bury it. It bears repeating that you cannot waste chances if you’re going to run such a plodding offense.
Wesleyan settled offense is pretty pedestrian. They just don’t have a guy capable of creating offense both for himself and his teammates. Landow is the closest thing they’ve got, but he doesn’t seem to get enough touches. The quarter ends with them taking a bad shot then watching Colby clear.
4th Quarter
Jennings misses another good scoring chance. That’s three shots from 5 yards and in that Colby hasn’t finished in the second half. ‘Nuff said.
That Wesleyan pedestrian settled offense? Still pedestrian. They’re only getting offense off of individual efforts, no real team movement. Fortunately, Teddy Citrin dodges from X, gets a step and buries the eventual game-winner for an 8-7 Wesleyan lead.
Colby and Wesleyan trade ugly offensive possessions, culminating in a Wesleyan player launching a 20 yard shot. No, really, that just happened. Popcorn.
Colby manages to draw the first of three Wesleyan penalties in the final 6:47 of the game. If you go 0 for 3 on EMO down a goal in the fourth, you probably deserve to lose.
Reilly makes a great save to keep Colby in it. The Colby offense repays him by taking their sweet time subbing and setting up. Don’t worry, you’re not down a goal or anything.
Covington goes 1 man army and clears it all the down to the box. Timeout Wesleyan.
Colby transition leads to another Wesleyan penalty. So what you’re saying is that transition can lead to good things…?
And there’s the third Wesleyan penalty of the quarter. They sure aren’t doing themselves any favors.
Covington beats a Colby attackman to the endline and then celebrates by acting like he’s having a seizure standing up. Nominated for an ESPY for “Most Awkward Celebration”
Wesleyan does an excellent job of burning time of the clock. Reason #45 why we should have a shot clock.
Colby manages to get it back and call a timeout once they touch it in. Of course, they botch the offensive possession. After some up and down craziness, the game goes final. 8-7 Wesleyan, who won despite barely having the ball and not being particularly successful with it when they did. Transition goals, a strong second half from the defense and Colby’s own insistence on slowing down the game even more in the second half instead of pushing to blow it open gave Wesleyan the win and eventually was the difference between the 5th and 6th seeds in the NESCAC tournament.
From the CAC to the 'CAC 