Report From Windridge

We had an uneventful trip to beautiful little Roxbury, VT, and arrived in time to move into our cabins:  Will, Jake,  Patrick, Marcus, Adam and Seth are in a sung little cabin for six.  Next door, the other 19 are in a large double cabin they have nicknamed "AD".  I am sure some of you get the reference.

We dressed for the 11:30 match with Stowe, had a good warmup, and kicked off against the defending VT Division 2 champs.  Stowe is coached by my good friend Brian Buczek, who works for Windridge, and helped me bring this event into being five years ago.  It's grown since those early days. They are expecting close to 16 high schools here in the next four days.

After a scoreless first half, Stowe broke on  top 1-0 after a giveaway in our box gave their striker a clean loo at goal. It was exactly the same play as the one which  decided the summer league championship two weeks ago.  Same central characters, who will remain nameless.

We rallied in the second half and scored two late goals.  Avdery Kravitz created both of them,causing all sorts of mayhem on the left side.  He sent a ball through the box and several people had looks at it before Cian Kelly ghosted in at the back post and tied the game.  A few minutes later, Avery beat his defender to the baseline and centered a ball that was knocked back to Jake Acker, who ripped it into the net for the winning goal.  Defenders Max Greenwald, Ian Caldwell, Luke Strohbehn, Cian Kelly and Reilly
Decker played well.  The starting midfield of Asa, Jonah and Josh controlled the match.

We went straight to the dining hall for lunch, and enjoyed barbeques chicken, rice with beans, carrots with a few green beans thrown in, and corn muffins.  Nice, light pregame meal, washed down with a lot to drink and a few granola bars for dessert.  Mmmmm.

After a ten-minute nap, we got to the fieldin time for our afternoon  match with Colchester, the defending Division One champion.  They were really up for the game, wearing their game uiforms.  The first half was scoreless.  Neither side had many good looks, and Patrick Logan wasn't tested in goal.  Seth Stadheim and Tim Alibozek created some good chances, but we weren't in a position to finish.

Our subs enjoyed an edge over their starters in the second half, but neither team did much as the hot afternoon got hotter.  Their coach was keeping time, and interestingly,  the game ended just as Seth broke in alone on the Colchester goal.  We laughed it off.

We had two good hard games, with everyone healthy playing a lot, no one getting injured, and
our injured guys resting.  We're playing ourselves into shape, and learning a lot.

After the game, the team adjourned to the swimming pool, which was said to be quite chilly.   Perfect for Andrew Kazal's post-game icebath.  Most players went in for a dip, and a good number stayed long enough for a game of"500" that cooled their cores.

We'll have supper at 7:00, an evening program with some guest lectures by college coaches (both the Middlebury and Norwich coaches watched us today), and then some s'mores over the campfire.  Open flames, sharp sticks, sugar, and 25 energetic high school students.  What could possibly go wrong?

Stay tuned for an update tomorrow!

p.s. Check out this link to some great photos of last night's Alumni Game:

https://www.facebook.com/mike.stinson.14/media_set?set=a.631915636907216.1073741929.100002663555085&type=1

p.p.s  There is no Freshman training Thursday afternoon.  Training will resume Friday at 3:30.