Two days later, ready to talk about our season opening loss.

Editor’s note: Normally we talk in the first person plural but today’s article calls for full ownership.

Losing a Friday night game  salts away the weekend.

Losing a one goal game makes you think about every mistake and every missed chance.

Losing a season opener makes you question everything leading up to the loss and everything that will happen next.

Losing to a team that has inferior talent brings to mind the adage of “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard,” but I’m not sure that entirely was the case Friday night. The effort was there for the most part but not necessarily combined with intelligent decisions. Shapes of good ideas.

The game flew which is another way of saying we never felt in control. At half time, teammates were suggesting we were playing a running clock. Chalk that up as a failure in game management on my part, especially in the 4th quarter.

I remember Ryan Boyle talking about 1 goal losses this past season and claiming they were his fault. We didn’t value our possessions and in a tight game that is a super cardinal sin of the Dan Brown caliber.

Heading into the fourth quarter I repeated to myself, “play like Kobe in the 4th.”

This time last year I took the last shot of the game and it fell for an overtime win.

Friday night I took the last shot hoping for a tie.

It’s a shame that we put ourselves in that position to begin with but I was happy to have the opportunity to put the team on my back and send it into overtime. I took a dodge from the wing, beat my defender to the crease and instead of rolling back for a stronger right handed shot I rushed off something in tight that missed the top corner.

The defender got to the sideline first and the ball went the other way.

We almost had a Syracuse like chance with ten seconds to go but I couldn’t cleanly handle the ball that was suddenly in my lap. My deflected effort hit the goal line as the whistle blew.

It is a failure that will haunt me for a long time to come.

While I had a chance at the end of the game to tie, I didn’t take full advantage of my match up during the game. In the fall I was covered by their top pole but didn’t draw the match up Friday.

The pole that covered me was a couple inches shorter, pounds lighter, and a step slower.

He couldn’t cover me and to quote Denny Green, “we let ‘em off the hook.”

Last year, I wrote in great depth about how my shooting frequency had been stunted by playing with such great players in high school. In summary, there were better players on the field and I deferred to them. It is my belief as a player and when I was a coach that the best players should have the ball at the end of the game to determine the outcome. I had the lost shot and didn’t execute.

But in looking back on the game as whole, I only took four shots. That’s not enough especially when the defender couldn’t cover me.

Thus, the conclusion I’ve reached is that I didn’t dodge enough.

Had the confidence to shoot with the game on the line but I didn’t put enough pressure on the defense through out the game.

I do trust my teammates. I don’t consider myself a ball hog. But I definitely feel like I missed opportunities to make things happen on Friday.

Tough lesson to learn but a lesson learned none the less.

I apologize to my teammates, my coaches, the alumni, our fans and families in attendance.

I am so thankful this was the first game of the season. Let’s take what we learned and move forward.

Time to take responsibility and exercise some leadership.

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On a positive note, the home whites are unbelievable. We’ll post better pictures when we win a game.

Didn’t realize I was wearing middle linebacker shoulder pads.

Might not pass out the team gloves until we do win a game.

At least happened for me today.

Notes

Final score: Pitt 7 Grove City 8

Stat line: 1 G 2 A

Sick new contributor at LAS

Watch the USA-Duke scrimmage at 10 on ESPNU. It will  be the  best lacrosse on television until May.

This article was a mess. Can’t think straight on losing.