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Message: [QUOTE="JeremyCuse, post: 3295619, member: 43"] I think Aviles is still learning the position at this point and should continue to get better as the season goes on. Dami sounds like he will take a starting role once he is ready to go (I think that will be this week) and then as you noted there are multiple guys like Small and Barlow who the staff will turn to if Aviles struggles against better offenses which is likely to happen. I think the staff likes him as he appears to be extremely athletic, is comfortable pushing the ball as a 2 way middie and and has the size/speed/athleticism combo that the staff is looking for. There definitely is going to be a learning curve though and we have seen that a bit already. Teams are going to take whoever the other SSDM is opposite of Dearth. Army has been very impressive so far, they look like a top 5 team. That said it does appear that they are definitely in a stretch that they can't possibly keep up for a large portion of the season. They are a very good team but Army isn't UVA 06 or SU 90. At some point ( hopefully this weekend) they are going to come back down to earth a bit. I think they have done an excellent job of ambushing teams early and their goalie and midfield play has been excellent start the year. They haven't missed a beat despite losing 3 high end Defensive players including two AA. Army is also a very difficult team to come back on as they don't make a ton of mistakes and are happy to grind games out so they limit possessions and their usually good a the X and in goal making it difficult but no impossible to go on an extended run. That said there is no way their goalie is going to be able to sustain an .800% save % and inevitably a few teams will keep pace early or actually jump out to a lead and force Army to play catch up. SU has the offensive depth and talent to score on this team for sure. I am a little bit concerned about the attack based on Cook's youth and Rehfuss's history of going MIA at times but with these two midfield lines plus Scanlan and a guy like Seebold off the bench there is no excuse. Defensively there are definitely some concerns but if Mellen is back we will be by far the best defensive team they have seen all year. [/QUOTE]

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