roadhockey.net

Veterans wait out win

They may be old and a step behind, but in a half-court game against their younger opponents Sunday they never trailed en route to a decisive 12-8 win.

It was, said Beetle Boy, a case of experienced players knowing they had to take full advantage of their opportunities.

"We weren't trying to play pretty, we knew we couldn't do that," said the senior fair-weather player, who teamed up with Lak Attack, the Living Legend and occasionally Giebelhaus to open up an 8-3 lead before coasting to the win. "We were shooting like crazy and that made a difference."

It was the kind of barrage that caught Chico off guard a number of times, especially when his inexperienced defenders kept trying to deflect shots away from harm but instead tipped them past their beleaguered backstop.

"We had guys who were trying to do too much by getting in front of the net and trying to tip it away," said the sophomore shotstopper, who returned after missing the past two weeks.
"You've got to play the other team honest."

It was an especially difficult game for Bam Bam, the youngsters' senior player in only his second season at the courts; time and again his frantic efforts to control the defensive end went awry, catching his own teammates out of position to push the transition.

"You play on a court like this enough times, it's not just that you know the strategies, you know which plays work and which ones don't," said Yak. "You make less mistakes and wait for the other guys to choke."

Though down by as many as five goals, the youngsters didn't give up as they tried to run their way back into the game. But the veterans didn't panic. Instead they bided their time until their opponents again started making mistakes, especially in the transition from defence to offence.

"The dump-in is the most important thing in this game," said Beetle Boy. "If you can control that really well, then that's the big difference."

Which is just what Lak Attack did, especially as his teammates tired.

"They were a little bit better at staying coordinated with each other," said Yak.
"We were often too close to another guy on our team or too far apart."

"(The veterans) did a good job of keeping a handle on it," said Chico. "They recognized what they had to do."

Posted by jaysuburb at December 11, 2011 05:29 PM