Winter Park 19 - Chaminade 9

Winter Park head coach Barry Creighton on his thoughts about the way Chaminade played (paraphrased from my memory): "First of all, that's one of the toughest games we'll play this year. You guys play hard the whole game. Your best ability is driving and getting open in the half-court. Your six-on-five was really good too. It just came down to turnovers. You would run a great counter-attack, get the ball down to the wing and the wing would rush the pass and turn the ball over. Part of it was that our guys are really good at pressuring and staying in the passing lanes. But, if the wing can just hold on to the ball and be patient, you are very good at getting open drives in the middle. You half-court defense was really tough to score against, you have the ability to stop people. But in the end, it came down to your turnovers."

My thoughts exactly. Just like against SLUH, we failed to take care of the ball. The lack of patience and lack of pride in passing is getting very frustrating. The boys really need to be aggressive when they are in possession of the ball, protecting their water with their shoulders and getting their shoulders out to pass. To para-phrase Coach Creighton; if it's the right pass to make, then you should make the effort to get your body out of the water to make the pass. I would guess that 14 of their 19 goals came on counter-attacks, either off of steals or missed shots. 4 came on man-advantages and 1 came from set offense. If the Red Devils can make the choice to be patient with the ball, make the proper pass, get their shoulders out and use the whole shot clock, the SLUH and Winter Park games become winnable.

Still, we played a very strong offensive game against a tough defensive team. Seniors Jack Meara, Chris Watkins and Junior Ed Rose had their best games of the year, driving hard to the goal and getting goals out of the hole set. Senior Jake Entwistle chipped in two goals as well. Our six-on-five was very effective, sparked by great passing from Watkins. Senior Peter Hoette jumped into goal in the third quarter and helped his teammates out with great passing and even a few steals. Junior Kevin Glauber netted his first varisty goal, on his birthday no less! Happy Birthday Kevin! Player of the game honers go to Jack Meara who had 4 of the 9 goals, including 2 from the hole, with a man on his side.

It was a good game and it was fun to go against the guys we had been practicing with the last couple of days. Coach Creighton and his boys were great hosts and we hope we can return the favor to them in the future. We look forward to trying to make this trip happen again next year. We need to bring them some Chaminade gear next year!

Tomorrow we have 3 games. The first will be against Olympia, in which the full team will play. The second game, the "White" team will play Winter Park's JV. In the third game, the "Red" team plays Boone.