First day at the Bison Brawl! Vs Webster Thomas

The morning was filled with excitement, I was sat in my room in the morning watching the other teams rolling in to register for the first day of the Bison Brawl Tournament at Bucknell University.
After the great few days we had had at The Gait Cup and the way we had improved I thought that we could go far!

We would play Webster Thomas from the Rochester, NY area at 2.30 in the first game of the competition, we walked over the the stadium which is a 10 minute walk over the road using a tunnel taking you under the busy road, it takes you to 5 grass fields next to the beautifully manicured soccer field and golf course. We would play on pitch one and everyone was excited for the game.

Hearts and minds our number one fan (above)

Unfortunately the game would not play out how we had planned at we where beaten not by an amazing team but usually by ourselves we made some major errors but we did have some Knight play very well and some highlights in the game to get excited about but for some reason we had taken a step backwards. Willy Baxter played amazingly well in goal but some of our Defenders created offense for the other team and failed to pick up important ground balls which every Lacrosse players knows Ground balls win games! Webster Thomas had some great players and one of their midfield players scored 5 goals!

The highlights of the game for everyone was Tig Bancroft's goal which was only a small reward for all the hard work he has put in during the last Tournament playing the Defensive Middie role with Grit, of course tig did his dance as promised that pumped up the boys and everyone crowded around him to congratulate him when he ran off into the Knights box!

Then came another reward for another Middie that had worked so hard clearing the ball and being generally Hench, definately one of the Knights players of the tour Ciaran Johnson, he never complains, takes long shifts on the field and plays as hard as his body looks! hence his new name Hench! he scored a great goal again to show that this kid is one of the best young athletes in Lacrosse!

Jay Moore is one of our top line middies and had played well in all the games scored a great jump shot, he has great technique and has been inverting behind goal, finding feeds for other players and
was rewarded with his own.

As everyone knows our mantra has been "23 Men" and a few players doesnt make a team and I and the other coaches where not happy with the lack of effort and desire to win in this game, it was simply not good enough and there was no other way to tell the team than straight. This has been my dream for a longtime and this means a lot to me and wanted to show them that, we had a meeting after wards and the players also held their own to air their views!

Compete, Intensity, Desire and leave a good impression on every team!

We would see if the players could bounce back in the next game against Westfield.

Unfortunately towards the end of the game Tig went over on his ankle and we found out later after a trip to the Hospital that he had a very bad sprain, he didnt deserve it but injury is part of an intense sport but everyone on the team have tried to help him, team mates getting his meals at the cafeteria and fetching him drinks, they are like a Family now!