Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Friday, February 24, 2006

CSU 6  -  UCSB  5

Friday, February 24, 2006

It's almost one o'clock in the morning.  I am a little fried to say the least, but I want to get something in here before I lie my body down for the day.

It was a lovely evening in Santa Barbara.  The competition was the finest.  I love the rivalry between our two teams, and I have nothing but respect and admiration for the Gaucho team that we were fortunate enough to beat tonight. UCSB does a great job of using their personnel and of playing a game that has a certain style.  They are tough and by the way fun to play.  They have good, well-coached players and a good plan.

BUSINESS MEETING #1

The game was good, but it was definitely more exciting than it was a thing of beauty.  The drama was almost palpable.  I love that.  I am not that pleased about how we played overall.  We can play better.  I know we can, and even allowing for the fact that it is 'early' in the season.

The more I think about it, however, the more I realize that we overcame many obstacles of the day, and with it being the first game in a very long time, I should be somewhat satisfied.

We had a long day to kill off today, and we haven't had to do that non-activity before.  This is also a whole different team that I am watching this year.  We did not look or play this way last year.  We are many new faces and we must play a different kind of game based on who is in fact playing with us now.  In light of many things I am indeed happy for the win.  I also know we have many areas to shore up, many areas to improve.  This was a start.

I HATE SIX

We scored six goals total.  Six players scored one each.  That is interesting.  Danny Stevens (#32 – A – 2007) had 4 assists and was our offensive glue, holding together several opportunities long enough and well enough for his mates to finish.  In fact Danny had four of our five assists. Having five assisted goals out of 6 does reflect the style that we need to play in order to be successful.  Danny made some good choices tonight.

One might notice that 6-5 is not that much different from that 5-4 score that I moan about so much.  We went up early in the game, 3-0 methodically and cleanly.  This had me saying to myself, "That's what I am talkin' about."  This emotion was short-lived.

GOALS ABOUT GOALS

Our "goal" for the first quarter of this game was to score three and give up 0.  We almost made it, but the Gauchos, and in particular #44 (Granelli) stuck one in right before the end of the first, and this ignited the home team, they gathered that momentum thing, and it was 3-3 by the middle of the second.  If I had it all to do over, I likely would have had us shut off this #44 more than we did.  He is an excellent player.

We scored once more and led 4-3 at the half.  I was pleased with the overall effort if not the execution, but I expected that so I didn't harp on that aspect during the 10 minute break.  In my mind that would not help us.  I guess for this night I was more interested in figuring out what we did well and trying to build on those things.

The truth is we only found the net twice in the entire second half, but we played a significant part of the fourth quarter while killing off 5 seemingly endless penalties just to survive.  We were two men down for a spell leading up to the final 15 seconds, and finished the game one man down.  Offensive production was not a priority as the game droned on.  No, down the stretch we had to focus on and protect our house. 

Our defense was stellar.  They were warriors.  Our goalie was his excellent self, including the orchestration of a near perfect clearing percentage night for the team.  Pete (#3 – G- 2006) made a couple of huge saves late to help ice the game, and our man down unit was absolutely excellent and fearless during those crazy last minutes of the game.

COME ON COUGARS

I was disappointed to hear that BYU lost to Whittier today, 14-4.  This definitely gets my attention for Saturday's game in Whittier, California against the Poets, because I continue to have it in my mind that BYU is as good as anyone we play, so the thought I have now is that after a single blessed day to rest, we will surely have our work cut out for us again on Saturday.

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