As you've all heard by now, our season came to an abrupt end yesterday in Cortland, NY.  Let me start by saying that Cortland is a great team and they came to play yesterday, I give their coach and players all the credit in the world for taking it to us and earning the victory.

Having said that, we didn't give ourselves a chance.  We came out on our heels and played that way for most of the 1st half.  We were lucky to only be down by 4 at halftime.  We came out with some fire in the 3rd quarter and put together a nice run to get within 7-6 but that's as close as we would get.  When it was 7-6 we were actually man up and had turned the tide a bit but ended up committing a few turnovers off of ground balls which allowed them to widen the gap to 10-6 in a hurry.  It's not like we didn't have our chances to make plays, we simply let them slip away.

The only game I can relate this to is the first time we played in the NCAA championship down at Byrd Stadium in '99.  I felt that the "pressure" of that game caused some guys to tighten up and either force things or simply freeze up in the moment unlike what they had been doing all season.  If you watched us play all year and then watched us yesterday it was a similar feeling.  I still haven't watched the film but it just felt like we were constantly missing opportunities to execute the fundamentals that we had stressed all season long.  Even with such a veteran team and to have gone through so many close games this season it just goes to show that things change come playoff time.

While it's disappointing that we didn't give ourselves a shot yesterday, I couldn't be more proud and pleased with the group we had this year.  I can't remember another team that I've been a part of that showed up to practice each day with as good of an attitude as these guys did this season.  Our seniors were a big reason for that and the growth that some of them showed throughout this year was truly remarkable.  I could go on about each one of the ten seniors and before this is over maybe I will but just a few examples. 

Tom Petty (33g, 7a) went from being a player who we all would consider to be stuck in his ways to being one of the most coachable kids on the team in his senior year. 

Skyler Hopkins (34g, 22a) turned himself into a 2nd/3rd team all American midfielder after being a 4th attackman his junior year and it was all because of his attitude and because he bought into what we were doing. 

Flint Reilly practiced his tail off every day for us this year, wasn't rewarded with much playing time and in fact he didn't even make our 28 man NCAA dress list but it never effected his attitude or how he strove to make his teammates better. 

Mike Quinn went from being a 3rd line offensive middie as a junior to being the physical presence on our defense this year and played with a tremendous amount of heart. 

Jamie Wheeler is another guy who showed up every day to practice and did EVERYTHING we ever asked of him. 

Matt Ferrer (28g, 6a) is a great success story in that he was a walk-on when he showed up to Middlebury and turned himself into one of the best crease attackmen in the NESCAC. 

I've written about Bill Zrike's contributions before and what he's given us as a backup goaltender. 

Finally our three captain's, Mike Stone, Dave Campbell, and Pete Britt showed up ready to play every day this year and the team was ready to follow.

I've already started our individual meetings and so far I like what I'm hearing from the returners.  We're fortunate to have another big senior class (11) and all but one of them have played significant minutes at one point or another over the course of their career.  There's no doubt we're going to lose a lot of firepower on offense but all that's going to do is open up opportunities for some of these young guys to step up and fill those shoes.  I'm hoping/counting on a number of pleasant surprises when Feb. 15 rolls around next year.

We're finishing off our MGL playoffs tomorrow afternoon and will do the voting for MIP, MVP, and Baggattaway at that time.  I'll follow up with the winners in an email in the next few days.

Thanks as always for your continued support and look forward to seeing you soon!