Week #3 vs South Shore Stragglers 13-3 L (0-3)

Well, we've reached a turning point in our young season after facing a very challenging opponent in the Stragglers. They are a very skilled team and clearly one of the best (if not the best) we will face this season. The first half was well played and we got the Stragglers to open their eyes that we can be competitive with a half time score of 6-2 but, they showed no let up in the second half outscoring us 7-1 and never allowed us to get back in the game.

As Juice said, "don't get down on yourselves based on the end result of tonight's (Tuesday's) game - we know we're better than that." I echo his sentiments in that we have made tremendous progress and have shown the league and ourselves we can be competitive when we can work together. The Stragglers did an outstanding job in the offensive zone finding open men on the crease and making the 3rd and 4th pass. John Decesere and the Defense did a very credible job 6 v 6 facing direct shots but, it became impractical to stop the shots they took at point blank range. Last year, they scored 17 on 56 shots so last night's 13 on 41 should not have been a surprise and in some ways an improvement. We continued to do well with GBs (27 to 31) but, the deficiency of Defensive clears (14 of 24) and missed opportunities on possessions hurt our ability to give the Offense the chance to get quality shots (18). While we were below our season average of 6.5 goals/game we did get goals from Josh Fenton #21, Brian Crowley #14 and Steve Hooper #19 with Juice #23 getting an assist to bring his team leading point total to 9.

Its time to have a short memory and move on to what could be a four game run in games we should be very competitive - READ: games we should win. We turn our attention to two teams who were 1-7 last year in the Elder Tribesman and Rusty Bones, a rematch against the Grays at Home and another first year team with the Misfits at Home...turn the page and let's get ready to become the team we all believe we can be.