Marquette 6 - Chaminade 5

On senior night, the Chaminade Devils had to play short two seniors, captain Danny Faust and Andrew Spilling, and although the game was well played by both sides, the Marquette Mustangs ended up on top. Both teams played great defensively and the difference was the shooting accuracy of Marquette. The Mustangs big 2M, Sam Miller, was essentially shut down by Red Devil senior Jake Enwistle, which forced the Mustangs to take outside shots. Marquette senior Spencer Litzau had a fantastic game, netting three goals, all on skip shots from outside.

The Red Devil woes boil down to three things: shooting accuracy, passing accuracy and fouling on the perimeter. The first two are what I call "physical" mistakes, the kind of things you cannot control...sometimes you are on, sometimes you are off. The last woe (perimeter fouling) is a "mental" mistake that, when repeated as often as it has been lately, is not as easy to shrug off. It's a simple choice or keeping your hips up and left hand straight out of the water...or not. It's a matter of discipline to not reach to try and get a perimeter steal.

Still, we did a lot of good things tonight. Marquette knew what we were going to do offensively (setting picks to set up ball-side drives) and yet we still got a lot of open looks. A little less clogging of the middle, a little more accurate shooting and a little more accurate passing and we win that game by a decent margin. Our defense was stellar and when we execute offensively in addition to playing tremendous defense, we can beat anybody.

Goals: Meara - 3, Entwistle - 1, Rose - 1
Assists: Schott - 2, Entwistle - 1, Rose - 1, Watkins - 1
Steals: Entwistle - 7, Lauber - 7, Hoette - 5, Rose - 5, Meara - 3, Duncan - 1, Glauber - 1, Watkins - 1
Kickouts: Hoette - 2, Entwistle - 1
Saves: Lauber - 12

Player of the Game: Entwistle - 1 goal, 1 assist, 7 steals and not allowing Sam Miller to have a single decent scoring opportunity

Up Next: Wednesday v. Parkway North at Parkway North

Marquette 6 - Chaminade 4

Marquette brought their defensive "A" game to the second Chaminade-Marquette matchup of the year, this time for 3rd place in the DeSmet Invite. Marquette played smothering press-no-foul defense on the permieter and forced MANY bad passes from the Boys in Red. If we did get passes off, goals were still hard to come by, and I partially blame myself for not substituting more often, not changing strategies when the game plan didn't work and not encouraging patience enough. Marquette's goalie played well and we made him look like an Olympian with 18 shots and only 4 goals. We refused to take the highest percentage shots (near-side low) and our refusal to fake has finally caught up with us and burned us when we needed goals. But, the story of the game is not entirely how our offense played (because again, even though we made bad decisions with the ball, our accuracy was off and if the goals just won't go in, it cannot be forced) but also how the defense played.

Junior Jake Entwistle did a magnificent job against Marquette's big 2M Tim Meyers. Tim only scored one goal all game and it was on a backhand with Jake resting on the bench. The rest of the Red Devils, though, just played OK defensively, which is enough to get by against weaker teams but gets you beat by a good team (and Marquette is a GOOD team). Our defensive woes were entirley comprised of Chaminade defenders having their hips down, not playing in the passing lanes and fouling on the perimeter. By relaxing and playing lazy defense against a good shooting team, you give up high quality shots and do not get as many steals, which results in goals against and a low amount of counter-attack opportunities.

For those of you wondering, "hips up" means getting your suit on the surface of the water. This position is ideal for a few reasons:

• If you are facing the man you are covering, he has nothing to grab onto except your hands, which are easier to wrestle free.
• If your man somehow gets a hold of your suit or leg, everything is close to the surface for the referee to see.
• If you do get beat, or are even with your man, being high in the water allows you to knock down his shooting arm or foul if necessary. If your hips are down he can overpower you.
• If your man drives or you need to help on a drive, it is easier to change directions if your body is on the surface of the water (less resistance)
• In the same vein, if there is a turnover, you can get started quickly to offense because you are already in the ideal swimming position, with your legs behind you instead of underneath you.

Congrats to Marquette for winning third place and playing one of the better defensive games anyone has played against us. Maybe Coach Emde is taping our practices!

Things that went right:

• 2M defense
• 6-on-5 (3 for 6 is pretty good)
• Having high expectations of each other (the boys screaming at each other, although not ideal, shows that they care and have passion...it's better than being indifferent, and it makes them want to work hard in practice to get better)

Things that went not so right:

• Defending the perimeter, fouling too much on the perimeter
• Shot selection and patience on offense (I cannot remember an instance where we took a foul in the hole and looked for a cross-goal pass)
• Screaming at each other (passion is good, rage is not)

Goals: Benage - 2, Kubik - 1
Assists: Duncan - 1, Hoette - 1, Kubik -1, Meara - 1
Steals: Entwistle - 3, Benage - 2, Kubik - 2, Meara - 2, Arnold - 1, Faust - 1, Watkins - 1, Stabler -1
Kickouts: Benage - 1, Hoette - 1, Meara - 1
Saves: Stabler - 8

Player of the Game: Entwistle - 3 steals and fantastic defense throughout the tournament. If we had a team MVP for the tournament, he would have my vote. Now if we could only get him to go on the offensive end of the pool...

Up Next: Wednesday April 16th v. MICDS @ Chaminade. The JV plays against Parkway West at 7:00 PM and the varsity takes on MICDS at 8:00 PM.

Chaminade 9 - Marquette 5

In the most enjoyable and entertaining game to date, the Chaminade Red Devils won the Rockwood Invite by defeating the Marquette Mustangs. I thanked Marquette's head coach Gregg Emde twice for such a clean and well-played game. For the first time in the tournament, there weren't any "extra-curricular" activities coming from the opposition. The game was a hard-fought, aggressive game, but played fair and clean. I can't say this enough: grabbing, holding and kicking are NOT "part of the game". This game was proof-positive that two teams can compete on a level playing field, play aggressive, not play dirty and enjoy the game more because of it. Playing dirty takes all the fun out of the game for both you and your opponent. I must again commend Gregg and all the Marquette players and we look forward to playing them again.

We knew going in that Marquette was a very explosive offensive team with sharp-shooting, speedy perimeter players and a big dominating 2M. The game plan was to have Junior Danny Faust shadow the big 2M (Tim Meyers) all game and have Senior Jack Benage and Junior Jake Entwistle guard Marquette's Chris Frimel and Kyle Catani, the aforementioned speedy sharp-shooters. As it happened, those three scored all of the Mustang goals, but not in the quantity they are used to. By leaving early for defense and slowing down the Marquette counter-attack, not to mention the fantastic goaltending by Senior Blake Stabler, the Red Devils were able to hold the explosive Marquette offense to their lowest goal output of the season.

On the offensive end, the Red Devils displayed the patience I have been desiring this entire season. Patience and creativity are staples of good offense, and finally we had the patience to match our creativity. Protecting the ball, making the easy pass and not forcing passes resulted in better shot selection and on a couple occasions we dumped the ball because the shot clock ran down. To the average spectator, running down the shot clock may seem like a bad thing, but I believe offense is something you cannot force and if a high-quality premium shot is not available, then we should protect the ball, dump it in the corner and go back to defense.

Things that went right:

• DEFENSE!
• Offensive patience
• Shot selection (except maybe a backhand from outside the goal mouth by someone who will not be named)

Things that went not so right:

• Communication - it was better, but not where it needs to be in order to beat SLUH or DeSmet

Goals: Kubik - 4, Benage - 2, Entwistle - 1, Meara - 1, Watkins - 1

Assists: Kubik - 3, Arnold - 2, Stabler - 2, Meara - 1

Steals: Faust - 4, Stabler - 3, Hoette - 2, Kubik - 2, Watkins - 2, Benage - 1, Entwistle - 1, Meara - 1

Kickouts: Watkins - 1

Saves: Stabler - 14

Player of the Game: Faust - 4 steals and tremendous defense on 2M Tim Meyers. Danny swam around when Tim was inside 5M and played behind and didn't foul when Tim was outside 5M. The biggest guy in the pool and most dangerous goal scorer was held to one goal by Danny's efforts.

Up Next: Monday, April 7th v. Lafayette @ Lafayette. JV at 4:15 PM, Varsity at 5:15 PM.