Good Post Powell, playing a team twice in the same year is always hard especially if you won the first game and it took place less then two weeks ago. Not an overly complex game I think having just played UNC a few weeks ago, we should know their strengths and weaknesses pretty well. I assume both coaches while try and make minor adjustments but for the most part the teams are what they are. As I think Ivorytower noted in another post expect Breschi to go with his third FOGO (O'Connell) who plays middie who he went to late out of desperation who ended up going 5/7 against Varello/Martin. Phaup was 2-5 against UNC so not terrible but obviously Varello's 13-18 performance was clearly a huge part of the win and helped SU just start to wear UNC down.
Defensively after a slow start SU really locked UNC down in the second half. Trippi and Perry each got a goal late with their speed but SU was simply trying to run out the clock at that point. Still those two have given SU trouble in the past and I expect Breschi will try to attack through the midfield more this game. Mellen locked down Andy Matthews who had 2 assists in the 1st quarter and then was shut out the remainder of the game. Nicky Solomon had 2 goals early and it looked like SU switched Mellen on him for a few possession before going with I believe Bomberry for the rest of the game who held him pointless in the 2nd half. Cunningham had the younger Kelly and the other big frosh Attack Cameron when he rotated in. Kelly didn't register a point and Cameron had a goal in the 1st half but again nothing in the 2nd. Not sure SU is going to do anything all that different to be honest. As Powell pointed out UNC has two pretty good mid lines especially when you consider Perry and Cook are on the 2nd line. That said, that line is also a total enigma. Cook had a great looking goal against ND last week in the first half and then a few possession later he had a terrible turnover and then totally disappeared until he had another nice goal in the 4th. Timmy Kelly had 3 goals against ND and 1 against us and Perry had 2 goals against ND as well. UNC's frosh attack appear to have hit a bit of a wall and the midfield is really having to carry the load. SU poled Timmy Kelly and I suspect they will do the same as well and will pole Perry when he is out there as well. If Breschi tries to go with Perry on the 1st line with Timmy Kelly I would give serious thought to double polling with Kennedy like we did last week which worked out very well.
For SU offensively I think its just continuing to play within itself and spreading the wealth. If you look at the 3rd quarter of the UNC game where it went from 7-7 to 11-7 the faceoffs were actually tied at 2 a piece, yet SU scored 4 goals including a beautiful transition goal to end the third. I thought UNC's D played fairly well and really made life difficult for Curry and Trimbo. They double poled the midfield pretty much the entire game even when the 2nd mid line was in. Trimbo was held scoreless and both he and Curry had 2 turnovers each. Will be interesting to see if UNC goes this route again and what adjustments if any SU will make. Against Navy, Solomon seemed to play up top more even with the starters (he was playing attack) which I thought was interesting. Voigt has been red hot so you don't want to go to Cook or Seebold to get the short stick matchup right away. Will be interesting to see if Desko/Donahue bump Lipka and run Solomon with the 1st midfield and run Cook or Seebold attack which would force UNC if they wanted to double poll to either stick with the plan and let Solomon go against a shorty or adjust and let Cook or Trimbo run against a shorty. Should be an interesting chess match. Lipka could play a big role here to if SU decides to play it straight up, he had only the one goal against UNC last game. Buttermore had 2 goals and gave the UNC goalie fits, expect to see a lot of him. Interested to see what Carlin's status is, as he was very aggressive against UNC with 4 shots and 1 goal. I believe Quinn saw more time with him out against Navy. ( No idea why he was out). Rowlett had Solomon last game (I think), will be interested to see where they place their best defender especially after Gleason from ND torched UNC for 5 goals last Sat mostly on dodges from up top.
Goalies are both pretty good. We all know how locked in Porter has been for pretty much the entire season save a half here or there. Johnson for UNC had 13 saves against ND and had 11 against us. Faceoffs I think favor SU at least goign by the last game and on paper but we have to see how Phaup looks. Feels like he has hit a little bit of a wall with all the punishment he takes and the amount of draws he has taken this year versus last. As I noted in the beginning of the post I expect Breschi to get cute and go with O'Connell either very early or from the jump. Hopefully Phaup matches up with better then UNC's main option. Wing play needs to be a bit better as I think someone pointed out in the Navy thread the wings didn't appear as active as they have and they were a couple of instances where Phaup was battling 2 or 2 on 1 and the wings were MIA. We seemed to have gotten away from the double pole and are going with Dearth and Schwasnick plus a long pole usually either Kennedy or Fernandez. Going to need to be better here on Thursday.
As for the outcome hard to say. SU has gotten better with slow since the ND game but I don't think the outcome will be the same this game if we get down 6-2 again. For me the game hinge on a few things. 1. Turnovers - SU had 17 last time against UNC, way way to much. We were better against Navy but I expect UNC to try and ride hard as we had some issues with that against Navy and got bailed out a few times by the whistle and some great passes. 2. What do we get out of the starting midfield? Curry continues to be a bit of an enigma to me. Looked like an All-American the first half of the season but has faded a bit down the stretch. He had 1 goal on 7 shots against UNC earlier and 1 goal on 4 shots against Navy. Clearly SU runs an offense that spreads the scoring around so there is no one guy dominating the ball/shots. But since the Duke game he has had 1 game where he has scored more then 1 goal (Cornell). I would like to see him hunt his shot a little bit more and be a little more unselfish. Trimbo had a nice breakout game against Navy after a few so/so performances, would love to see him continue that on Thursday.
3. Match the emotion of UNC. In a straight 6 on 6 game I think SU is right now the better team compared to UNC but we cant come out flat while UNC comes out with their hair on fire like they did a few years ago in the 1st round of the tourney and before we know it SU is down 7/8 goals.
I understand the team probably isn't thrilled to be in the 4/5 game because of the tiebreaker crap but they need to take care of business on Thursday and get themselves a second crack at UVA. This team has come a long way since Colgate, a loss here throws some of that away and puts us at a 7 or 8 seed for the tourney. Just win.
