SCOTLAND YARD NEWS: Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Tuesday September 04, 2007
Written by: Jason Stanley, Assistant Coach
Our pre-season flew by, as it tends to do, and we’re one game into the regular season. The boys finished three-a-day trainings last Wednesday and ended the week with a Reserve Squad scrimmage against the Central Michigan Club team. We saw some great things from the guys, incoming and returning, throughout the two weeks of pre-season, particularly an intensity and work rate that have left both me and Nate very pleased. We managed to escape the pre-season with very few injuries and those that were hurt are almost fully recovered. Freshman Andrew Waligorski was out early with groin troubles, but returned midway through the pre-season and started our first match. Newcomer Chris Przbylski went down with a severe ankle sprain in an early scrimmage and is almost back to full training. Senior Ben Queen is awaiting results of a scan on his sprained MCL. Freshman Blake Loomis is still working a sprained ankle back to 100%. Freshman Chad Erickson returned to full training at the end of last week after being out with strained ligaments in his ankle.
The mood around training and in the locker room has certainly changed in a positive direction, and I believe that is testament to the hard work that was put in by our returning players in the spring and summer, and the talent and attitudes of the our first recruiting class.
We saw our first regular season action at Saginaw Valley State this past Saturday. Our starting lineup featured several returning players from last year’s lineup including Dave Henson at center back, Mark Daisy in the central midfield and Dan Laatz at forward. These guys were complemented by two freshmen in the likes of Andrew Waligorski in the central midfield and Anthony Bergstrom in goal. By match’s end, eight freshmen players saw significant action including Geoff Ferguson who came on as an early substitute at right back after an unfortunate injury pulled Sonny Koch from the match. The match was physical, to say the least, but we responded well with strong play and a fantastic work rate.
Unfortunately, we were unable to capitalize on our scoring opportunities, but I thought we were very dangerous throughout. Mark Daisy saw his header hit the woodwork around the 22nd minute and the follow up shot was headed off the line by an SVSU defender. We also had several opportunities in the closing minutes including near misses from Dan Laatz and freshman Ryan Derby. SVSU was able to capitalize on an error off a goal kick late in the first half and then found the net from the penalty spot midway through the second half. We lost the match 2-0 and certainly have some work to do, but all in all the effort was there and several positives can be taken from the match.
The boys had a solid training yesterday with quite a bit of fitness to prepare for a tough week in which we’ll face the likes of Division II school Northwood midweek and two tough Division III opponents in 16th ranked Capital University and pre-season 3rd ranked Ohio Wesleyan University. The weekend matches in Delaware, Ohio are a part of Ohio Wesleyan’s annual Adidas Invitational. We’ll face Capital on Friday evening at 5:00 pm and Ohio Wesleyan on Saturday at 7:30 pm.
Posted: Tue, September 4th, 2007 at 3:08PM
