Anonymous wrote:
Game was 10-9 St Stephens. A great win for them. Down 6-1 at the very beginning of the second quarter, they run off nine goals to three and come back to win the game.
The league will be competitive this year. Now, no one can run the table. The season only matters to determine seeding for the end of season tournament. The only thing that matters is the tournament.
If St. Stephens could have won more than a couple of 50/50's at the faceoff X, they would have pounded Landon.
When do Bullis and Prep play St. Stephens? What do the prognosticators say about those match-ups?
I think Saints will beat Bullis and give Prep fits, but Prep will ultimately convert all those possessions into a winning goal margin.
Except the Saints do not have a dominant FOGO this year. Based on what I watched, if Landon coaches hadn't benched their starting goalie (apparently he got an un-sportsmanlike penalty), I strongly believe the Saints do not crawl back into the game yesterday. 80% of the Saints goals came against Landon's back-up goalie.
Regardless of what I think, major kudos to the Saints players and coaching staff. You receive a beatdown on Friday at Landon and less than 24 hours later, the Saints coaches clearly made some adjustments defensively to hold the Landon offense to 9 goals (after letting up 19 the day before) and shock the Bears.
Based on the limited results thus far in the IAC, I'd rank the teams in this order.
1. GP - they have the most depth in the league by a mile and should be able to wear teams down. How much will the Lil Hoyas improve between now and late May?
2. Bullis - they have the most individual talent but can they play as a team.... depth will be an issue in May but Bulldogs always improve over the course of a season under Bellistri
3. Landon - they have the talent to run with anyone but coaching is an issue as this is one of the more athletic Landon teams in a while. Their FOGO will keep them in games
4. Saints - the Saints are the best coached team in the IAC and it showed this weekend. Very good offense but depth will be an issue as it warms up in May
Great to see we are getting a season in this Spring and most importantly the seniors get a chance to compete one last time for their HS before they head off to college in the Fall.