Kittens pounce on CCP 15+-1

Despite giving up 12 goals the previous weekend against SLAP, the Kittens buckled down against CCP on Saturday, allowing only one goal, while showing significant improvements both on offensive and on defensive. At the beginning of the game, since CCP did not have enough players, Luke Brooks and Cullen Gerber graciously went to play for CCP. More on them a little later. In the first quarter, the Kittens struck early against CCP. Early goals came from, among others, Victor Castro, Joey Buelter, Michael Mcward, and Todd Losby. Defensively, the Kittens did a great job of getting into the passing lanes. Player of the Game Peter Brooks made multiple steals as a result of being in the passing lane. In addition, Victor Castro made some great defensive steals as well. At the end of the first, the Kittens were up 7-0.

In the second quarter, the Kittens continued their successes in the pool and even began running the “umbrella” offense. The Kittens scored a couple of times off of point drives, including a nice drive and goal by Todd Losby. The offense as a whole looked much improved this weekend, as the Kittens were more aware in the water and did a much better job of getting set up in the right spot in the pool. When halftime finally rolled around, the Kittens were up 14-0.

In the third quarter, we made it our goal offensively to run out the shot clock and then dump the ball. Although this is not something we had worked on or even mentioned in practice, the Kittens caught on quickly and were even yelling “yellow” and “red” when the shot clock was winding down. The Kittens’ shutout, however, came to an end in the third quarter with a skip shot from behind half by none other than Cullen Gerber. At the end of the third, the Kittens were still winning 14-1 and had completed a very successful quarter in holding the ball and running out the shot clock.

In the fourth quarter, the Kittens’ goal shifted to trying to run the offense using only off-hands. The Kittens did surprisingly well at this, scoring a few more goals in this manner, including one by POTG Peter Brooks. However, the Kittens could have gotten a good number of more goals had it not been for Luke Brooks, who played very well in the deep end goal for CCP. At the end of the game, some of his Kitten teammates were requesting that he play goalie more often for them.

Although the Kittens thoroughly dominated the game, it was still a great learning experience for the team. Offensively, it was great to see the team setting up and being patient, while defensively, the team was much more effective at getting into the passing lanes. Although there is still plenty of room for improvement, the progress from last weekend was extremely encouraging. Looking forward, the Kittens will look to further improve upon these things this week in practice as they look to face Storm next weekend.

One last note: After the end of the game, I had both refs and another team’s coach come up to me and tell me that they were very impressed with the team’s sportsmanship, especially with how the game ended up score-wise. This was great to hear, especially considering that we not only try to teach the players to play hard and well but also to play with good sportsmanship in the process. So, in conclusion, great job this weekend and congratulations on a great effort. We will hopefully see you all at practice this week.

Coach Ray