Chaminade 9 - Kirkwood 3

The first victory of the season came against a very tough Kirkwood team. It was a physical game and the referees were letting the boys maul each other. Cooler heads prevailed as the Red Devils worked hard, played aggressively, but also played fair. I'm proud to say that I saw no sign of any CCP players taking cheap shots or retaliating to offenses against them.

The game started off slowly as neither team could find the net for the first 5 minutes of the game until Michael Kubik broke free on a counter attack to net the first goal of the game. The Red Devils would tally three more goals, including a no-look hammer from Dan Fernandez, before Kirkwood scored their first goal 3 minutes into the 3rd quarter. Unfazed and bolstered by a staunch defense, Chaminade netted 3 more goals in the 3rd, highlighted by Kevin Arnold's tee shot. Going into the 4th quarter up 7-3, the boys locked down defensively and shut down Kirkwood's offense for good, netting two more goals of their own in the process.

In the absence of Senior Kevin Rejko and primary 2M defender and Captain Jack Benage, Danny Faust, Jake Entwistle and Chris Duncan picked up the 2M defending duties and allowed only one goal out of the set (a push-off in my opinion). I do believe that we have a very gifted and defensive-minded team and if we get our back-door problem fixed, we will have one of the stingiest and hardest to score upon defenses in the state.

Things that went right:

• Half Court Defense - for the second game in a row, the 2M defenders did a great job fronting the 2M and the perimeter guys did a great job staying in the passing lanes and not fouling the passer.
• Driving - especially the first series of drives during a possession. The boys work hard to get ball side and maintain their position.
• Shot Selection - I don't know what I said since the DeSmet game, but all shots came within 7M of the goal and in between the posts. It's easy to score 9 goals on 19 shots when you take high percentage shots.

Things that went not so right:

• Counter-Attack Defense
• 6-on-5 offense (stats were fine, execution was lacking)
• Resetting offense after first drives

Goals: Kubik - 4, Fernandez - 2, Meara - 2, Arnold, 1

Assists: Arnold - 1, Entwistle - 1, Faust - 1, Glauber - 1, Kubik - 1, Meara - 1, Stabler - 1

Steals: Stabler - 9, Kubik - 4, Watkins - 3, Glauber - 2, Faust - 1

Kickouts: Schwartz - 1

Saves: Stabler - 11

Player of the Game: Kubik - 4 goals, 1 assist, 4 steals and 1 "no retaliation" to a punch attempt by an opponent

Up Next: Tuesday March 18th v. SLUH @ Forest Park Community College. JV at 4:15Pm, Varsity after JV at approximately 5:15PM.