Lost to Buffalo. Beat Ball State.

Buffalo 8 Pitt 5

Initially, I was thinking about discussing the differences between “could have beaten” and “should have beaten.”

Buffalo had graduated a lot of talent from last year’s team.

They had been practicing in a gym all semester.

This was their first game of the season.

And yet, there is no “could have” or “should have” but instead “did not” for another year.

This game played out very much like the Grove City game particularly in the fourth quarter. The difference being when things got tight, I sensed Buffalo (at least their defense) becoming nervous whereas we were nervous late in the fourth quarter.

When we tied the game at four, there was a moment of belief for our team. It did not last long because Buffalo scored off an ensuing faceoff drew a penalty and then scored on the man up.

It takes a lot of mental and physical energy to come back. We didn’t have anything left when the score read 6-4. Patience and smart decision making went out the door in an effort to quickly tie the score again.

This is a learning experience that will only help the young players on our team.

We are now 0-2 in games decided in the fourth quarter. I’m excited for a chance to fix that record.

Pitt 17 Ball State 6

The MCLA is known for games all weekend.

In Buffalo’s case, they played Ball State after our game and then hit the road. Crazy, but impressive.

At noon on Sunday we played Ball State.

There are many dangers of playing back to back games.

Fatigue being the most glaring.

Players will consider the score of the Ball State Buffalo game (10-4 Buffalo) as a gauge for the difficulty of our contest.

Players will naturally be thinking about other things in their lives (USA Canada game) as they near lax burn out.

You could see all those things working against us. We got off to a slow start in the first quarter. Then when the lead was very much in hand, we came out flat in the third.

The important thing was to get a conference victory and we did that. We were also able to install a few new wrinkles on the offensive and defensive ends of the field.

Personal Assessment

(Or, let’s see how many other sports references I can make.)

I have 10 assists in 4 games. If this were basketball (#1) my assist to turn over ratio would be rather awful but the Celtics (#2) would probably still trade for me to add depth to their bench.

In high school I was adept at looking off defenders, very much how Tim Tebow (#3) does it, so I can feed an open cutter. Now, I zero in on a teammate and passes are being deflected or picked off, which happens to Peyton Manning (#4) on the regular.

To complicate things, I feed like Brett Favre (#5). I have a gunslinger mentality. And, it was cute before it started to hurt the team, but as I said my assist to turnover ratio is horrendous.

Wanting the ball in your stick and wanting to make plays is what you want out of a senior leader but we can’t possess the ball and the defense can’t rest if I’m throwing the ball all over creation in what subconsciously amounts to me trying to rekindle my 8th grade point guard (maybe #6) playing days.

More on that later this week.

Switching gears to a slightly less abundant topic, my goal scoring finally located its unicorn. I was able to tally my first ever career hat trick against Ball State.

Drop the Petr Sykora (#7) moniker. Cherry popped.

Crystal Ball Challenge Week 3

The Chapman Cal Poly game might have been the hardest MCLA game to call this weekend but we were able to choose dispassionately and made the right choice.

Not going to say we weren’t excited following the updates on twitter when Cal Poly took a lead into half time.

No one is going to want to play them in Denver.

We were able to watch the Princeton Hofstra game on ESPNU before our game against Buffalo.

It appears Princeton’s style of offense is trying to make up for their geometric shapes on their uniforms.

Over 2500 people saw Georgetown give up 8 second half goals to Maryland and lose by 2.

Will Yeatman recorded his first hat trick of is Maryland career against the Hoyas. Maybe this is his break out year.

We could have called it Separation Saturday.

The riff raff is starting to distance itself from the pack. Last week, there was a tie for second place. Now, there is a tie for third.

No room for error.

Friday night we took in the CSU Lindenwood game on CollegeLax.

We never judge people based on their appearance but there is no way this man’s music is any good.

Oh boy.

Wow.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW

Notes

The USA Canada game was amazing

Penn State improves but loses to Notre Dame 12-8

High school game of the week by Lax.com

New Gorillaz album courtesy of NPR…

Capitals coach Boudreau on Canada’s win: “I was really happy that Canada scored, but I was kinda wishing one person wouldn’t be the guy who got it.”

What guy is he talking about? Sidney is unreal