Orange 10 - Parkway 8

Parkway was short a few players to start the game, so we lent them a quartet of P-South All-Stars for the game (Auinbaugh, Champion, Brett Gleason and Patrick Gleason). Those four have played a lot together both as Jungle Cats and as Patriots and I knew they would really give the rest of Orange a good game.

I did not take down the end of quarter scores, but the game was tight throughout. In general, our game plan was to get the ball down to a wing and get a positive set through driving, which we had been working on the last few practices. The first half was brilliant in that regard as Michael Bowers was a driving and setting machine, generating a ball side drive on nearly every possession he was in the water for. Elsewhere on offense, Zach Smith, Michael Sigman and Darrian Castro did a great job creating position and communicating when and where they wanted the ball. For the most part, I was impressed with the counter-attack as goalie Pat Archer had little trouble finding a teammate winging out on every counter. Defensively, Pat Archer did a great job communicating with 2M defenders Justin Jellinek and Michael Tanner. The perimeter defenders stayed in the passing lanes for the most part and we forced a lot of bad passes, leading to easy steals.

Points to work on would be very similar to the things Yellow needs to work on: communication and getting back to defense. EVERYONE in the pool needs to talk more and the always appropriate "if you aren't in the play, go the other way." Not only does the phrase rhyme, it's a very good lesson for the boys to learn. Too often, we watch the play instead of watching our man. We need to anticipate when the counter-attack is about to happen.

For this game I went with a 3-star system...
- 3rd Star: Michael Tanner - solid in guarding Parkway's best threat, Jake Auinbaugh, and was part of my second favorite play of the game, a give and go with Michael Bowers (who deserves honorable mention for his performance) that generated a great inside water shot for Tanner
- 2nd Star; Justin Jellinek - guarded Auinbaugh a bit tighter than Tanner did, often preventing Jake from wanting to go into set. Justin had his hips in the passing lanes often and never got beat to the goal
- 1st Star: Zach Smith - was great at both ends and was by far the best offensive player in the pool. My favorite play of the game was Zach getting a steal from the point by playing passing lanes, sprinting to the cage with two guys coming down his back, doing a pop-shot which generated a 5M penalty shot when he got clobbered and unselfishly allowing Michael Sigman to take the 5M.

Special thanks to the P-South All-Star Quartet for being good sports and playing hard for the opposing team. Thank you Jake, Kenny, Brett and Patrick!

-Coach Tom

Cubs Weeks 2 & 3

Sorry for the delay. As always, I am going from memory on the score as stats aren't kept.

Tiger Cubs
Last week, the Tiger Cubs had a great showing against the SLAP Women. The defensive effort was fantastic holding SLAP to only 2 goals. Joe Kabance and Ben Kimbrough led the way at 2M guard. The aptly named Max Wahl had a great game in goal and won player of the game honors.

This week, the Tiger Cubs had to face a very physical Kirkwood team. I don't know why, but some seniors-to-be were playing for Kirkwood in what is meant to be a JV league. Anyway, the TC's got off to a rough start by throwing passes to teammates who weren't looking, which resulted in a lot of counter-attack goals for Kirkwood, 8 in all in the first half. In the second half, the TC's improved their passing and their defense, allowing only 3 second half goals and scoring 8 themselves (6 in the 4th quarter) which brought the final score to 11-9 Kirkwood. For the second week in a row, Ben Kimbrough and Joe Kabance led the second half defensive charge and both are improving greatly. The player of the game (there were many candidates worthy) went to Robert Garlock for playing hard both ways, often being in the right position at the right time.

Lion Cubs
Last week, the Lions Cubs battled SLAP to a 13-9 win (I think). SLAP was physical and counter-attacked hard and it took some adjusting for the LC's to leave for defense early to prevent counters. Colby Faddis again led the offensive charge (a SLAP parent was overheard saying "who is that kid?") and the defensive stopping was left up to Mitch Kramer and Nate Burgraff. Nate earned POTG game honors by making multiple stops on SLAP's 2M's.

This week, the LC's got off to a rough start against Parkway who boasted a graduated senior from Parkway West, Kevin Gallas. Kevin was bigger and more physical than our guards, and countered early and make strong moves close to the goal. Mitch and Nate adjusted though and started keeping their hips up and pushing Kevin outside 5M, where he became ineffective. Nate took home POTG honors again for figuring out how to stop Kevin's backhand. Michael Hagerty, Colby Faddis and Mitch Meyer led the offensive charge as the LC's won 14-10 (or so).