Chaminade 9 - Ladue 4

Final Four here we come!

The Red Devils came to play on Wednesday night and completed the sweep of the Ladue Rams, who have been an increasingly tough opponent all year. The comments from our boys regarding the Rams have been nothing but positive and they were great competitors all season. I'm glad this was the last time we had to face them, because they might beat us if we had to meet again.

Right from the get-go, you could tell the CCP boys were fired up and played very aggressively on the offensive end. We countered hard, we made good passes and we attacked the goal. The goal output was a very consistent 3 goals per quarter until we pulled back the reigns in the 4th quarter.

Defense was a little shaky in the early going as a lack of communication gave the Rams a lot of opportunities in the first half. Senior goalie Blake Stabler bailed his teammates out often as we got caught watching and left the most dangerous shooter open (the idea is to let the guys hanging out at half be open and guard everyone who is 7M or closer to the goal...it's also not a good idea to make your teammate swim from 2M to 2M). Blake's 21 saves were a season high and is playing his best water polo at the end of the season, which is awesome. There were some passes in the second half that had me scratching my head, but he still played a great game.

Things that went right:

• Goaltending
• Defensive recovery - we made mistakes, but we recovered well and usually didn't repeat the mistake
• Offensive aggressiveness - we attacked, attacked and then attacked some more. A great offensive effort

Things that went not so right:

• Communication - how many times has this appeared in this section? Too many. It got better in the second half, but we still need to talk to each other in the water more
• 6-on-5 - I made the mistake of calling a timeout when the goalie got kicked out, but we still should have scored on the time out. Also we took a lob on 6-on-5...a big no-no.
• 5M shot - I think Jack was too tired, I should have had Kubik take it.

Goals: Benage - 3, Kubik - 2, Arnold - 1, Entwistle -1, Meara - 1, Watkins - 1
Assists: Kubik - 3, Stabler - 2, Benage - 1, Duncan - 1, Hoette - 1, Meara - 1
Steals: Kubik - 4, Meara - 4, Entwistle - 1, Duncan - 1, Hoette - 1, Schwartz - 1, Stabler - 1
Kickouts: NONE!
Saves: Stabler - 21

Player of the Game: Stabler - 21 Saves on 24 shots, 2 assists and 1 steal

Up Next: 8:00PM on Friday May 16th v. DeSmet at St. Peters Rec-Plex.