Tuesday, November 2, 2010

UNC's First Two Games

(Well, this is a lot more awkward to start off that I thought it would be for a simple relaying of facts... Ha ha.)
After about 3 weeks of practices, we had our first pre-season tournament. We changed 3 people this year, Ethan, Mahdi, and Brent (who isn't new, but didn't play last year), yet we weren't too worried because they already flowed with the team pretty well. Next year, we're expecting 5+ jersey changes so that'll be interesting.

The tournament itself went pretty well, we went 2-2, losing to both Metro State (DI) and CSU (DI), and beating Denver and Kansas State. That put us at the fourth seed to play a re-match to the CSU game. Being that we were destroyed 11-1 in our first meeting of the year, not a lot of people were there to watch what they anticipated to be a blowout of a game. We did end up losing, but only 5-4 and with that fifth goal coming late in the third.

So that was the end of our pre-season tournament. We weren't too disappointed with how we played except with the losses, which is typically the case. As a team, we're excited to have Mahdi because he's a good dangler himself, and a great forechecker. He put up some big points this tournament and we were excited to see what he could do as he started to learn our play style a little more. Ethan and Brent are great additions because it's good to have people that stay back on defense, which is something we kind of lacked last year.

Well, our first regular season game was against Arapahoe Community College, a team we anticipated beating and beating hard. After the first period, it was 5-0 UNC, with our goalie seeing maybe 2 or 3 shots that period. We decided to keep putting some points up and also try to work on some other plays.

*To ACC's credit, they only had 4 people, and we decided to wear them out fast just to be safe*

To stay on the topic of our "dangle" theme, here's a goal that I scored in the ACC game. I received the pass right around the blue line, and immediatelly had enough momentum to get a 1-on-1 with a defenseman. Since I was coming down the left boards and am a righty I started to swing to the right to get a better angle on my forehand shot while progressively getting closer to the defenseman. Once he got close enough, he turned his full body to swing with me and not let me shoot, to which I pulled left and did a simple toe drag to keep him from pokechecking it from me, then I shot it hard at low glove and it went straight in. So, again, don't underestimate those toe drags, people.

After the second period, when everyone had a few goals under their belt, we decided to stop scoring and work on some breakouts, cycling, passing and other stuff. The game ended 14-0 and we went home happy with our first regular season game.


Later that day we had to play DU for some reason, which we ended up losing 7-3. I was very disappointed in how we played. We were down 5 after the first two periods and then finally scored our first goal in the third. It was ludicrous, and really, at times like that, it makes it hard to play. But, you have to shake 'em off, I guess.

After these first two games, the Little Man himself was leading in points with 4 goals and an assist. I must confess some jealousy, because I thought for sure I would be doing better haha. It's alright, I guess. Batting .500 isn't too bad, right? : /

6 comments: