16’s go 2-0 on the evening

First Game: 16’s 14 – SLAP 10
Player of the game Jake Chisholm made a ton of saves when his team needed him, plus his passing was the best it’s been all summer. In general, the offense is looking very good. We are aggressive and we are getting really good at moving the ball down to the wing and generating ball-side drives. SLAP had some strong players (read: older) and the youthful Cats went in fearless and did a good job not letting their best players beat us.

Second Game: 16’s 10 – Mad Dog 9 (OT)
The second game of the evening was a little sloppier as we generally outplayed Mad Dog the entire game, but too often gave up bad goals by making what Coach Baud calls the “wrong mistake”. Mistakes are okay, but we need to a better job in making the less costly mistake (such as overplaying the 2M in a crash rather than the perimeter players, or staying on the guy closest to the goal rather than press the ball, or driving the wrong way instead of not driving at all, or missing low on 6-on-5 passes rather than missing high). Making mistakes is part of polo (and life) we just need to figure out how to minimize the impact of making a mistake by being in the right position.

Also, hips starting dropping and there was a lot of bouncing on the ground in this game. A lot of fatigue is mental and we need to force ourselves to reinforce good habits when we are tired (As Joe Kabance pointed out, rest on your stomach, not your back, because at least you are resting in good position).

Three important plays of note in the 4th quarter: down two, our 7th goal was scored by Thomas Morgan off of a hole pass created by a great wing out and shrug move by Aaron Adcock, our 8th goal was scored near-side low by Zach Smith off an aggressive drive, and our 9th goal (and go-ahead goal at the time) was scored by Sam Erlinger on an aggressive move in the hole. Those three plays wouldn’t have happened a month ago, we’re really improving.

Two POTGs…the first being Thomas Morgan for being the offensive catalyst in the 4th quarter when we were down 3 goals, and for scoring the game winner in overtime…the second being Sean Sullivan for repeating Jake’s performance in the first game, making the saves he needed to make (plus some ones that maybe he shouldn’t have) on top of really good passing.

Being down 8-5 going into the fourth, we scored 4 unanswered and almost shut out Mad Dog for the win but for one defensive lapse at the end of the 4th quarter. This team has shown the ability to completely shut teams down, but has yet shown the focus and the intensity to do so for 4 quarters. We need to do that in California if we want to be successful.