What a comeback and what a fourth quarter. Really impressed by the team's tenacity - a number of times they could have given the ball back to Rutgers but instead they fought like heck, won the ball back and scored. They were like a swarm of piranhas. The play that led to Voigt passing the ball over his head while falling down to Lipka for the goal really stands out in my mind. The team just refused to quit.
What a rollercoaster. At different times I wanted both Cook and Solomon benched - boy did they prove me wrong. Solomon got stripped a few times, stumbled a few times, yet came alive as the game went on. That fake was masterful. Cook was stoned on a breakaway when he of all places stuck the ball directly into the goalie's stick. But in the fourth quarter he played his best game to date. Really impressed how the offense has gelled - they are so unselfish and share the ball tremendously well. Nice to see Rhefuss have a strong day as well.
All that said - against better teams they will need to play the way they did in the fourth for longer stretches. The defense did not play well, seems like they struggled with the zone defense they implemented. Also did not love the match-ups - why was Mellen not guarding Mullins? I don't think they trusted Cunningham to mark the smaller/shiftier Gallahger. Seemed like in the second half they settled down more, but some sequences were really rough - thinking mostly of the play in which Helmer allowed Charalambides to waltz in untouched for an easy goal because of a communication issue. Just surprised it took as long as it did for SU to make adjustments.
I do wonder if there is a better way to utilize the three long stick midfielders. Maybe Cunningham and Bomberry just had off days, but I wonder if one of the midfielders would have been a better matchup with the attackmen? Fusco seems like too good of a player to be the third guy off the bench. Should the coaches be tinkering more with matchups? Or trust the close defensemen to figure things out?
In regards to depth, it seems like the coaches have settled on a crunch time unit rotation of the four top midfielders, and Cook rotating in at attack with Solomon sometimes bumping up to midfield. It is a little unorthodox to say the least, but I am impressed it worked as well as it did against Rutgers. I thought they might wear out but the offense just got stronger as the game went along. Again, credit big time to the new strength coach.
I thought the MVP award should have gone to face-off unit, it was a total team effort with how well the wings played but Varello was really outstanding at the end. Rutgers threw the kitchen sink at him and he really responded each time. What a performance.
