CCP Water Polo Gets Some Press!

http://prepsports.stltoday.com/ssi/prep/stories2009.nsf/waterpolo/story/B6DE2AD464528B288625758D005537E6?OpenDocument

Paul Kopsky of STLToday.com called me yesterday evening (between periods of the awesome Blues-Red Wings game last night) and asked me some questions about the game against Ladue and this morning that article was on the website. I think I was more complimentary of Ladue in the interview than it shows, but I do think our confidence is back. I hope we can build upon that this weekend. Nice picture of Meara!

Chaminade 11 - Ladue 8

Check back Sunday evening for the write-up and stats. It takes longer than you would think to write these posts and I am just getting bombarded at work right now. I won't have time to write until the Conference Tournament is over (like anyone reads this drivel anyway!) Coach Stream is going through the same thing as layoffs at his company are forcing him to carry a heavier load. Even the water polo team isn't safe from the economic crisis!

Tonight v. Ladue

Tonight we have Ladue at home. JV at 7PM, Varsity at 8PM.

Sorry about my lack of posting of late, a lot of deadlines at work after missing three days last week. Being busy at work is a good thing, but I wish it were slightly less busy at the moment! Now I know how the boys feel, trying to get homework done while juggling water polo and everything else.

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.

Tonight v. Ladue

Tonight, the 3rd ranked Boys in Red will begin their post-season quest against the 6th ranked Ladue Rams. The game will start at 6:15PM at the St. Peter's Rec-Plex and I would like the boys to try and arrive at 5:00PM.

This will be the 4th meeting of these two teams with the last meeting ending 5-3 just 10 days ago. Ladue is a very good team with two excellent 2M's Zach Varwig and Hayden Yancey. Their goalie is unheralded, but has played very well against us this year. We need to do a good job of getting cross-goal shots and using fakes to keep him off-balance.

It's "make or break" time as this could be our last game of the season. I have been saying all along, we are a great team, maybe the best team, if we are all focused and we execute. We cannot win this game on athleticism alone, we need to be ready and focused. I'm pumped. See you there.

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

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!

Chaminade 12 - Ladue 8

In their second meeting with Ladue this season, the Chamimade Red Devils took care of business by netting 12 goals, all from starters Arnold, Benage, Kubik and Meara. The story from this game was the dominance by these four and the other top players whenever they touched the water. Scoring came at will and the defense was smothering. The reserves, on the other hand, did not display the same determination on the defensive end and let Ladue back into the game multiple times. Since the score was 1-0, Ladue was never within 1 goal of the Red Devils, but the lead was only two at multiple times during the game (2-0, 3-1, 4-2, 9-7). This demonstrates both the Rams refusal to quit and the Red Devils refusal to play defense for 28 minutes. 7 of the Rams 8 goals came from their big 2M's Zach Varwig (5) and Hayden Yancey (2). The reserves did get their chance at redemption though...

Goals: Kubik - 5, Arnold - 3, Benage - 3, Meara - 1
Assists: Benage - 5, Entwistle - 1, Kubik - 1
Steals: Benage - 5, Entwistle - 3, Kubik - 3, Arnold - 2, Watkins - 2, Duncan - 1, Glauber - 1, Meara - 1
Kickouts: Entwistle - 1
Saves: Stabler - 10, Lauber - 3

Player of the Game: Benage - 3 goals on 4 shots, 5 assists and 5 steals

Today v. SLUH, Tonight v. Ladue

Today we have two games out at the Rec-Plex for the round robin stage or the DeSmet Invite.

The first game is at 5:25 PM against top-ranked SLUH. Our first meeting was a defensive battle that I thought would have been closer had there been no shallow end. Now we get the chance to prove my theory correct. We match up with SLUH very well because we have the defenders in quantity and quality to match up with their high-powered scorers Tim Dale, John Heafner and Will Page. They are smart, aggressive and good shooters. If we keep them in front of us and don't foul, we will have success at shutting them down. On our offensive end, we have been struggling since the Marquette game to get into a rhythm. Forcing passes, forcing shots and being impatient are the symptoms of our illness. The cure is patience and staying high in the water when we are pressured and when we are passing.

The second game of the day will be against Ladue at 9:35 PM. I'm worried about this game because a) it's the second game and we might be tired and out of focus by game time and b) Ladue started to figure out how to attack us at the end of our first meeting. Zach Varwig and Hayden Yancy are still very dangerous 2M's and if we don't take them seriously, we could find ourselves down early.

Starters against SLUH:
#1 Blake Stabler
#2 Jack Benage (c)
#3 Michael Kubik
#4 Jack Meara
#5 Kevin Arnold (c)
#8 Danny Faust
#9 Peter Hoette

Chaminade 9 - Ladue 1

The Red Devils got back to .500 by beating a very good Ladue team. The scoreboard didn't show it, but Ladue played tough and held Chaminade's offense in check. An injury to Ladue's senior goaltender gave CCP an opportunity to score some soft goals against an inexperienced sophomore. But, regardless of Ladue's goaltending situation, our boys clamped down on two of the best 2M's in the area (Zach Varwig and Hayden Yancey) and allowed only one Ladue goal off a perfect cross goal shot. So even with their #1 goalie, 2 goals would have secured a win.

Things that went right:

• 2M Defense - Danny Faust, Jake Entwistle and Chris Duncan, with support from Jack Benage and Jack Meara, held the Ladue 2M tandem to zero goals. They rarely fouled outside 5, which forced Zach and Hayden to take shots under pressure, and when they did foul, they immediately got a hand up and in some cases, blocked a shot (Duncan!).
• Movement on Offense - our set offense was quite rusty, but it wasn't due to lack of effort. The hardest thing to get high school players to do is to be aggressive on offense and make something happen when nothing is going on. We showed creativity and willingness to take risks with our drives and it paid off with high percentage shots and 5 man-advantages.
• Goaltending - Blake played fantastic and clearly frustrated Ladue's shooters. In the second quarter, he cramped up and Jack Meara put on the red cap and made a great save. The passing by both was precise and they even hooked up in the 4th quarter as Meara beat his man down the middle and Blake hit him with a dry pass at the 5M line for a easy goal.

Things that went not so right:

• Half-Court Offense Balance and Execution
• 6-on-5 (Patience is a virtue!)
• Winging Out Early on Counters

Goals: Kubik - 3, Arnold - 2, Benage - 2, Fernandez - 1, Meara - 1

Assists: Benage - 2, Duncan -1, Faust - 1, Fernandez - 1, Kubik - 1, Meara - 1

Steals: Stabler - 8, Entwistle - 2, Benage - 1, Kubik - 1, Schwartz - 1, Watkins - 1

Kickouts: Stabler - 1

Saves: Stabler - 11

Player of the Game: Stabler - 11 saves on 12 shots, 8 steals, 2 assists and 1 cramp recovery

Up Next: Wednesday April 2nd v. Parkway South @ Parkway South. JV at 7:00 PM, Varsity after JV at approximately 8:00 PM.

Tonight v. Ladue

The Red Devils are taking on the Ladue Rams tonight at Chaminade. The JV game starts at 7:00 PM followed by the Varsity game at about 8:00 PM. To my knowledge, we will have everyone dressed for the game without any lingering absences to make up. It's nice to come off Spring Break with a full lineup and a clean slate. I expect we will be be pretty rusty and relatively out of shape, so there will be lots of substitutions.

I am not very familiar with this Ladue team. I coached two of their players in the offseason, Zach Varwig and Patrick Wall. Zach is a senior who has played for me for two years and even went to California with me last summer for the Junior Olympics. Zach is Ladue's primary 2M and will probably be the strongest kid in the pool tonight (apologies to Kevin Arnold). When he wants to, Zach can be a game-changer so Jack Benage, Danny Faust, Jake Entwistle and Chris Duncan will have to keep a close eye on him all night. There was a nice write-up about Zach in the Post, you can read it here.

This will most likely be the most competitive home game we have remaining. They will bring lots of fans, so should we. See you tonight.

Starters for Varsity:
#1 Blake Stabler
#2 Jack Benage (c)
#3 Michael Kubik
#5 Kevin Arnold (c)
#8 Danny Faust
#9 Peter Hoette
#11 Dan Fernandez