Chaminade 12 - MICDS 8

Goals: Meara - 4, Rose - 3, Entwistle - 2, Glauber - 2, Duncan - 1
Assists: Glauber - 2, Watkins - 2, Entwistle - 1, Faust - 1, Meara - 1, Rose - 1
Steals: Entwistle - 6, Meara - 4, Faust - 3, Rose - 3, Watkins - 2, Glauber - 1, Hoette - 1, Lauber - 1, Schott - 1
Kickouts: Duncan - 1, Faust - 1, Glauber - 1
Saves: Hoette - 3, Lauber - 3

Player of the Game: Meara - 4 goals, 1 assist and 4 steals

SLUH 14 - Chaminade 4

Goals: Rose - 3, Meara - 1
Assists: Duncan - 1, Rose - 1
Steals: Entwistle - 4, Faust - 4, Hoette - 3, Meara - 2, Rose - 2, Schott - 2, Lauber - 1
Kickouts: NONE!
Saves: Hoette - 3, Lauber - 1

Player of the Game: Duncan - 1 assist and great defense

DeSmet 16 - Chaminade 7

Goals: Meara - 3, Rose - 2, Watkins - 2
Assists: Duncan - 1, Entwistle - 1, Rose - 1, Watkins - 1
Steals: Entwistle - 4, Faust - 3, Schott - 3, Glauber - 2, Meara - 2, Rose - 2, Duncan - 1, Watkins - 1
Kickouts: Entwistle - 2, Faust - 1, Rose - 1
Saves: Hoette - 8

Player of the Game: Watkins - 2 goals, 1 assists and 1 steal

Chaminade 12 - Parkway Central 5

Goals: Meara - 6, Faust - 2, Glauber - 2, Watkins - 2
Assists: Hoette - 3, Glauber - 2, Duncan - 1, Entwistle - 1, Faust - 1, Rose - 1, Schott - 1
Steals: Entwistle - 6, Rose - 3, Faust - 2, Hoette - 2, Meara - 2, Duncan - 1, Glauber - 1, Lauber - 1, Watkins - 1
Kickouts - NONE!
Saves: Hoette - 7, Lauber - 4

Player of the Game: Meara - 6 goals and 2 steals

Chaminade 13 - Parkway South 4

Goals: Rose - 6, Faust - 2, Glauber - 2, Meara - 2, Entwistle - 1
Assists: Hoette - 3, Lauber - 2, Meara - 2, Duncan - 1, Glauber - 1, Watkins - 1
Steals: Duncan - 6, Schott - 6, Faust - 5, Entwistle - 3, Hoette - 3, Rose - 3, Meara - 2, Watkins - 2
Kickouts: NONE!
Saves: Hoette - 5, Lauber - 2

Player of the Game: Duncan - 1 goal, 6 steals and great 2M defense on Pat Maloney.

Conference Tournament Opens Up Tonight

Tonight begins the varsity Conference Tournament, and we have two games, 6PM v. Parkway South and 9PM v. Parkway Central. Both games will be at MICDS. JV does not have any games and will have practice at 3:15pm.

Having just played Parkway South this week, we should know what they try to do. We need to be prepared to take it to them early and often.

I haven't seen Parkway Central yet, but they beat South in the Parkway Quad Tournament, so they should be pretty tough. We need to bring our game to them and force them to play it our way. Defensive intensity will be required.

We will also have DeSmet tomorrow morning at 9AM at MICDS to close out the round-robin stage of the Conference Tournament. After that, we will have one or two games remaining Saturday afternoon, depending on how we far in the round-robin.

See you tonight.

Chaminade 5 - Ladue 3

Jake Entwistle is my hero. Jake is probably our most gifted player physically and when he puts his mind to something (like setting up in the hole and ripping a halo backhand for a game-winning goal) he can do almost anything in the water. Now if I can only learn to get him to put his mind to doing that ALL THE TIME, then the Red Devils might be looking at the school's first water polo title.

The game was very nerve-wrecking (or is it nerve-racking? Not sure which it is). As expected, our team defense was excellent, allowing one first half goal on a perfect shot into the corner that most Olympians couldn't have saved. Ladue's second goal came in the 4th off a counter attack. The Rams leading scorer, Zach Varwig, left Jake as he was walking towards the goal with the ball. Our lack of communication again came back to bite us as Blake, Jake and everyone else on the bench (including me) should have made sure someone was going back to cover Zach. Jack Meara got the message too late and Zach had a one-on-one with Blake (impossible for the goalie to stop). As a lesson to all, you cannot let someone "cherry pick". If a defender leaves for offense, you need to go with him (or make sure someone is going back for you). Ladue's third goal was a weak backhand that caught Blake by surprise and he still nearly saved it.

Q: So if the defense was so good, why was the game nerve-wrecking/racking?
A: Because our offense was so flat that we didn't score until 3 minutes into the second half.

The opportunities were there for us, especially in the first half with at least 4 breakaways. I can point to many things that we could have done better, but the offensive woes boil down to three things:

1. Having beaten Ladue twice already, the boys were not focused before the game. As a team that beats teams by being smarter and executing better than the other team, being unfocused before a game is suicide. We aren't a bunch of 200 lb. bruisers who can have an off night and get by on our athleticism. We need to have sharp mental focus if we are to succeed.
2. Even though we practice passing ad nauseum during practice, our passing (especially wet passing to a guarded or moving target) is atrocious. We do a good job getting open on offense, but the window to get the ball to an open driver is small and we need to execute better.
3. Senior captain Kevin Arnold was out with a concussion that he suffered during the DeSmet game. Largely considered the emotional leader and one of the better passers, Kevin's absence magnified that two biggest problem areas in this game.

But, we survived and finsihed third in the Suburban Central Conference. We persisted and we did not give up. I'm proud of the way we played in such a close and emotional game. We will likely see this team again, so we need to make sure we get up for it next time.

Side note: if the shot clock is off (less than 35 second remaining) and you are in the lead, you NEVER should shoot. Shooting gives the other team an opportunity to make a play and come back on you. Even if you are all alone in front of the cage, I would prefer you hold the ball rather than try and score. History is littered with examples of people having a "sure thing" like a goal on an open cage and the sure thing ends up going awry. The best thing to do is play keep-away until the clock runs out.

Goals: Kubik - 2, Benage - 1, Entwistle - 1, Watkins - 1
Assists: Meara - 2, Benage - 1, Kubik - 1
Steals: Entwistle - 6, Kubik - 3, Benage - 2, Duncan - 2, Meara - 2, Faust - 1, Hoette -1, Stabler -1
Kickouts: NONE
Saves: Stabler - 15

Player of the Game: Entwistle - 1 goal (game winner) on 1 shot, 6 steals and displayed his ability to be an unstoppable beast if he wants to be.

Up next: Districts!

DeSmet 8 - Chaminade 5

The Red Devils again could not put together a 28 minute game as DeSmet tallied 5 goals in the 4th quarter (the most goals scored against in a single quarter) for 3 consecutive victories this season against Chaminade. Tied 3-3 going into the 4th after three great quarters, I was confident in the team’s ability to prevent the Spartans from scoring without the aid of the bottom of the pool, and it worked for the first 3 minutes of the quarter. With 4:36 remaining, CCP’s Junior 2M guard Chris Duncan got an ejection on the perimeter and the wheels started to come off. I made the mistake of telling Peter Hoette to leave a man in the middle, which resulted in a Spartan goal and a 4-3 lead.

On the very next position, the Spartan’s Danny Holtgrewe notched his third goal of the game on a cross-goal pass with CCP’s Jake Entwistle holding his arm. The pass had to be perfect (and it was) and Danny had to be strong enough to shoot with Jake on him (and he was). It’s tough to stop something like that.

The Red Devils were looking really down at this point, and I was losing my cool (sorry about that, I guess I just wanted to win pretty badly), but we didn’t give up (yet). Two possessions after Holtgrewe’s third goal, Junior Chris Watkins broke out of his shell and notched his second goal off a foul outside 5M. Clearly, this game was Chris’ coming out party as he played his best game of the year finally finding the offensive aggressiveness I knew he had. As Jack Benage said to me: “Chris is better than he thinks he is”.

We were back within one with three minutes remaining, but we were either too physically overmatched or mentally beaten down to overcome the deficit. DeSmet kept after the Red Devils with relentless countering and back door drives and notched two more goals on consecutive possession to put away the Red Devils. Down three, Junior Jack Meara didn’t give up and was a one-man wrecking crew getting possession of the ball deep in front of the cage, got a hard shot off, went after the rebound and forced DeSmet’s goalie to take the ball under, resulting in a Chaminade 5M attempt, which Jack Benage buried. Jack and Jack’s efforts were too late as the Spartans still led by 2 with less than two minutes remaining. A late Benage kickout and a DeSmet 6-on-5 goal capped the scoring.

The story, as I see it, is an old cliché: they wanted to win more than we did. We played a solid 24 minutes; the Spartans played a full 28. The biggest compliment I can pay DeSmet is they never faltered, never quit. They kept coming at us with a relentless and invincible attitude that we usually bring to every game. Luckily, this wasn’t districts and we will get a chance at redemption. Now we need to focus on Ladue on Saturday.

Things that went right (during the first 24 minutes):

• Offensive aggressiveness – we countered hard and took a lot of high quality shots off of ball side drives. Kubik and Benage had a lot of fast-break opportunities. Arnold and Meara had good chances in the hole. The opportunities were there, and you don’t get opportunities like that without doing a lot of things right.
• Anticipation – our best game of the year from an anticipation standpoint. I don’t recall any DeSmet player getting a fast break in the first 24 minutes. I don’t even recall a 2-on-1 or 3-on-2. We hustled back to defense. We also left early for offense when the clock ran down (see: offensive aggressiveness). Kubik, Benage, Arnold, Meara and Watkins were all anticipating and were hungry for goals. I loved the killer instinct.
• 6-on-5 – 1 for 2. Kubik’s pass to Meara was perfect.
• 5M shots – I guess “5M Survivor” is working

Things that went not so right;

• COMMUNICATION – maybe it’s a product of my talking the whole game, but I stopped counting the number of times our guys would switch on defense and didn’t call it out. I also stopped counting the number of times we didn’t call for help when we got beat on defense. I only have 10 fingers and 10 toes.
• Shooting – sometimes you shoot well and sometimes you don’t and sometimes you score 5 goals on 27 shots for the lowest shooting percentage of the year (18%). For those parents wondering, you aren’t supposed to throw the ball at the goalie’s hands. Looking back, with the number and quality of our shots in the first and third quarter, we were two or three near-side-lows from blowing them out (i.e. a 3-3 game after three could have easily been 6-3 or 7-3).
• Defensive break downs and learning from mistakes – goes hand-in-hand with communication. If you know a team is going to try to go back door on you, it might be a good idea to not let the weak side wing get open.
• Too many kickouts – dropping your hips and over-committing against good players will result in a season high in kickouts (we also got 4 kickouts in our loss to Marquette…don’t think there isn’t a correlation between kickouts and losing).

Goals: Watkins – 2, Benage – 1, Kubik – 1, Meara – 1
Assists: Stable r – 2, Kubik – 1
Steals: Stabler – 4, Arnold – 3, Entwistle – 3, Benage – 2, Duncan – 2, Meara – 2, Faust – 1, Kubik – 1
Kickouts: Benage – 2, Duncan – 1, Meara – 1
Saves: Stabler – 7

Player of the Game: Watkins – 2 goals on 2 shots in a “coming out party”. Add him to the list of guys on our team who makes things happen.

Up Next: 7:00 PM Saturday May 3rd v. Ladue at Ladue.

Tonight v. DeSmet

Tonight it's CCP-DeSmet Part III. The game will start at 7:30 PM at MICDS. We will again be short Kevin Glauber who will be playing for the JV in the conference tournament. Kevin will be back on varsity for the district tournament.

We have seen DeSmet twice and have lost both times by scores of 9-6 and 5-4. Those numbers tell me two things:

1. We have improved since the first meeting
2. We lost, but we didn't lose by a significant margin

In fact, we were tied 6-6 going into the 4th quarter of the first matchup and we went to overtime in the second matchup. Even in those basic facts, it's easy to see that we can play with these guys and if we are firing on all cylinders, we can beat them. I expect it will an intense game and I think both teams will come out early with a lot of energy and aggressiveness. Let's do our best to pack the house with red shirts and cowbells! I'm waiting for the day when Bill Stabler and Kin Watkins show up to scorekeep with red face paint.

Starters:
#1 Blake Stabler
#2 Jack Benage (c)
#3 Michael Kubik
#4 Jack Meara
#5 Kevin Arnold (c)
#6 Jake Entwistle
#8 Danny Faust

Chaminade 9 - Parkway South 0

The first shutout of the season! The Red Devils continued imposing their defensive will this season by shutting down the Parkway South Patriots. Despite early offensive woes, the Red Devils never relented on defense and frustrated the talented Patriots all night.

On the offensive end, the Boys in Red tallied the second lowest shooting percentage in a win, and the fourth lowest shooting percentage all season. As expected, South's Jim Bowers was a wall in the first half and kept Chaminade to only three first half goals. But, the Red Devils never relented and never got discouraged with themselves or each other. When things aren't going the way you want, you can choose to give up and bicker amongst yourselves or you can choose to persist. Our boys were persistent and I'm proud of them. Seniors Jack Benage (5 goals) and Michael Kubik (3 goals) led the team out of the slump by countering hard all the way to the goal and attacking the goal whenever the opportunity arose.

We have DeSmet up next, hopefully tonight's second half carries thru to the next game so we can get a jump on the Spartans early and never look back.

Goals: Benage - 5, Kubik - 3, Meara - 1
Assists: Stabler - 5, Kubik - 1, Meara - 1, Watkins - 1
Steals: Kubik - 7, Stabler - 6, Entwistle - 4, Benage - 3, Faust - 3, Watkins - 3, Arnold - 2, Meara - 2, Hoette - 1
Kickouts: Meara - 1
Saves: Stabler - 11

Player of the Game: Stabler - 11 saves, 5 assists, 6 steals and his first career shutout

Up Next: The semi-finals of the Suburban South Conference Tournament. 7:30 PM on Wednesday April 30th v. DeSmet at MICDS.

Tonight v. Parkway South

Tonight, the Red Devils begin the post-season against the Parkway South Patriots. This is the first round of the Suburban Central Conference Tournament. The game will be played at MICDS and will start at 7:30 PM. This is our second meeting with the Patriots this year. The Red Devils won the first matchup 9-3 in what was a closer game than the score shows.

South's Senior goalie Jim Bowers is one of the best in the area and we need to make sure we take premium shots. We need to make Jim move side to side and we need to fake in order to lock him down. Jim can be a game changer and if he is on, South will be difficult to beat.

Starters:
#1 Blake Stabler
#2 Jack Benage
#3 Michael Kubik
#5 Kevin Arnold
#6 Jake Enwistle
#8 Danny Faust
#9 Peter Hoette

Conference Tournament schedule set

Chaminade's varsity and junior varsity are both ranked 3rd in the Suburban Central Conference. JV's first game will be against 2nd ranked DeSmet at 6:15PM on Wednesday May 7th at Ladue High School, giving the JV a full week and a half to prepare. This will be the 4th meeting against DeSmet's strong JV team. Even though our JV has been able to compete with the Spartans, DeSmet has won the previous 3 meetings. A win puts the JV in the finals of the conference tournament. A loss will give the JV an opportunity to play for 3rd place.

The varsity will meet 7th ranked Parkway South for the second time at 7:30PM on Tuesday April 29th at MICDS. The Red Devils won the first meeting 9-3 at Parkway South. A victory puts the Red Devils in the semi-finals against the winner of DeSmet and John Burroughs on Wednesday. A loss will lead to the consolation bracket (and it is very possible to lose to South). We have 3 days of practice to prepare for a tough game.