B-Spa -- Last season we killed B-Spa: 22-9 the first game, 17-6 the second. This B-Spa team is clearly much better than last year's team. Their defense was especially good. They double-teamed the ball carrier almost every time and it was working. Our defense was not good the first half. Some of the problem was bad calls from the refs, but we just weren't getting people back in the midfield and B-Spa was getting fast break after fast break. So ... halftime was 4-2 them and I wasn't convinced we were going to change that in the second half.
But we did. How? We were more aggressive. Amy won and controlled a number of center draws. We started passing the ball up the field forcing B-Spa to run a lot to catch up. We caught B-Spa in shooting space a number of times and converted those free positions into goals (we finally figured out that shooting low on a tall goalie is a good idea). Near the end of the game Amy and Kate played great defense and moved the ball into the midfield very effectively (even more impressive is the fact that they did this after getting zero rest the entire game). Lauren and Calea consistently moved the ball through the midfield getting it to Larissa and Jordan who handled the ball well. And (last but not least) Daniella was, again, a scoring machine. 2-0 (win streak!)
P.S. Yes, I know, I forgot to mention Catherine. Except I didn't because I'm doing it right now. Catherine is a great goalie. Without her 11 saves the score of that game is 17-10 (we lose). Her clears were quite good as well.
Scotia -- What a great first game! I think Scotia was the perfect team for us to start with. They were fast, athletic, and had good stick skills. Why did we win? We were pretty much as fast and athletic as them (their stick skills were better), but we picked up almost all the ground balls. That was huge. Our passing was also very good (I wasn't kidding when I said we had more passes in that one game than the JV team had all of last season). The last, maybe most important, reason we won was ... Catherine! What a great job in the goal. Almost 20 saves -- so many that the Scotia offense clearly got frustrated. A good start to the season ...
