for 3/5/01
Let's start with Friday night. The Mens Hockey team was in for a battle against Union. The Red Raider's responded, with Morin scoring the first goal of the game late in the second period. The Red Raider's continued to pile on the pressure, and it paid off. Colgate scored 3 even strength goals. Union ruined David Cann's chance at his first shutout with a goal after they had pulled thier goaltender for an extra attacker. Colgate scored on the empty net to improve the final score to 4-1. We were in the playoffs as long as we did not lose and have Vermont win the next night.
Meanwhile, in Annapolis, the Womens Basketball team was out to prove something in their first round game against Bucknell. The Bison were unprepared for Colgate's early intensity, and fell behind after about ten minutes. 5 three pointers in the first half helped put Colgate in the lead. Frances Boone rejoined the team after being benched for poor grades. No word on why she was let back in. We shot 53% in the first half to pull out to a 45-31 lead at the half. Now this is where god awful officiating came in. It wasn't biased, but the Bison needed to be more agressive on defense. But it seemed like players were getting whistled for just breathing on an opponent. All we had to do was dribble up to the basket, and someone would foul us. 3 Bison would take an early seat, with another 3 stranded at 4 fouls. Colgate would get 24 points from the charity stripe. We won all the battles we needed to win, and were on our way to the semi finals!
The Womens Hockey team had a semi final game of their own on Saturday. Middlebury hasn't lost a division 3 game in their first 5 years, so why start now? Colgate scored first, and continued to have their moments, despite being outshot about 2-1. Middlebury quickly evened the score, then went ahead for good about halfway through the second. Colgate lost 3-1, Middlebury went on to win the championship again, and Colgate will be given the chance to start anew at division 1 next year. There is an outside chance we still make the national tournament, but I doubt that right now. It was a good season, but it's time to put division 3 and Middlebury behind us.
The Mens Basketball team had their own quarterfinals game against the Bison. We had trouble getting to the inside all game long, and shot 33% in the first half. We got behind and never were able to catch up. It was a very dissapointing game to watch. Same problem as with the women, we were forced to play from behind, and the refs were equally bad, 3 Red Raider's fouled out. Not just the fouls, there were bad calls on everything. During one quiet moment during the game, I decided to express my opinion about the refs and stood up to yell.. "Hey ref!" (It was really quiet, and everyone heard me, the ref even turned up to look at me near the middle of arena) "I talked to your proctologist, they found your head!" The line drew a pretty big laugh, even from the official, who shook his head back and forth as Zomberg added "They are still looking for your hair!" Another laugh and head shake. You know, it really shows how inexperienced these guys were when they look up when someone in the stands yells, "Hey Ref". Senior Robert Akers ended his career on a nice note, shooting 5-5 from the field. We just did not shoot well enough to win this game.
The Mens Lacrosse team fell to 0-2 after a defensive battle with Dartmouth. Both teams combined for just 8 goals. Asher and Grady were the goal scorers for Colgate. The Big Red of Cornell are up next in a road game on tuesday weather permitting.
Back to mens hockey action on Saturday night. RPI would be the final foe of the season. Colgate got no help from SLU, who got crushed by Vermont, meaning Colgate needed at least 1 point to make the playoffs. A nice but quiet crowd turned out to support the team and the 9 seniors who would be playing their final home game. The Red Raiders pressured early, but were unable to dent the net. Colgate killed 4 powerplays, before bad kharma struck again 5 minutes into the third on a penalty kill. From what I have heard from everybody, RPI fired a shot that hit the cross bar and fell into the crease where it was covered, the goal light came on though. 1-0 RPI. Colgate had two goals disallowed, RPI had two more power play goals, and the season comes to a very frustrating end. This is one that will be talked about for quite a while. I'll have some stats analysis up in a few days to acess the damage we will take from our graduating class. Meanwhile, we signed a new goalie on Thursday night. Steve Silverhorn has been added to the list of athletes who have commited to Colgate. He is the third player to come to us from the Owen Sound Greys. He was goalie of the year for his league, a league that the Greys finished first in in the regular season. This was the first time in almost 20 years that we have missed the playoffs.
The Womens Basketball team had their second game, against the Lehigh mountain hawks. The game plan was good, press, disrupt passes, and concentrate on the shooters. Unfortunatly, that left Billi Ford out of the picture. She was way too fast for our press, and Lehigh killed us on fast break points. We also didn't cover her, and why not, shes not much of a shooter. Well, she nearly doubled her career high for points and Colgate was out of this game after about 5 minutes. It was hard to watch, we played well, but never cut into the margin. Colgate ended up losing by 19, but who would have thought that they would have raked up more Presidents Cup points than the men? That one win over Bucknell will go a long way in helping the women win their overall race.
I had my own battles to fight, literally. During the game against Lehigh, two members of the Lehigh pep band came over to talk to us for a bit. And why not? We had good relations with them dating back to when we joined them at the 99 tournament at West Point. But this visit was a little suspicious. They talked a while, then stayed some more even though they had nothing to stay. They called over to their band, to see if they should go back, something was up. Sure enough, as soon as we started to play, the two students ran to the front of the section, and grabbed the big Colgate flag. They took off almost as quick and tried to run across one empty section and up the aisle. They never made it to the top. They ran right into one pissed off Red Raider fan who had seen the whole thing develope and is very quick when he needs to be. I grabbed the first guy by the throat before anyone else could react and I started screaming at the guy. I can't repeat what I said to him, but it wasn't very nice. They both seemed too scared to move and started apologizing right away. Now let me just say that I did not hurt anyone, and I wasn't trying to, if I wanted to, I would have. Now if they had gotten past me and I had to chase the little bastards, there might have been more trouble. Either way, they started apologizing, the Lehigh director got in touch with ours over the headphone and denied any knowledge of a plan to do this (yeah right). A Navy Midshipmen had been stationed near the top of the section and came down to help me out, and by the number of people who said something to me afterwards, I'm guessing a lot of people saw this. The flag was returned to me, and the Navy student escorted the two Lehigh students away, who were claiming this was just a prank, and they were just going to run around the arena with it and give it back. When I returned to the section, the mens basketball team, who was one section over watching the game and the incident, started clapping for me. That was a really cool moment. I felt like I had done something good for the school. Even Mark Murphy gave me a pat on the back after the game and told me I had done good. So that was my tournament highlight for myself. I don't like fighting, but sometimes you gotta show you will.
I'll be trying to update some stuff during the week. I've got some extra time this week, as it's the last week before break. I'm not sure where I am going yet. Someplace north I think. Maybe upstate NY, Canada. Who knows, me and my girlfriend are just going to road trip if the roads will cooperate. There will be one more report before I go, then probally not until next weekend. So, good luck digging yourself out from all this snow if you are in the northeast. Until then....
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