The Final Four Game Push

With the entire Vassar campus on October break, our team has been given a few days off to rest up for the final four games of the regular season. Some players went home, a group of guys went camping, and some of us have just been hanging around campus. We start practicing again tomorrow in preparation for our weekend showdown with Hobart and Hamilton. We’re fighting for the playoffs after a 1-0 loss to RPI this past weekend, although a surprise victory by Skidmore over Union means we are not mathematically eliminated from the playoffs yet.

Even if a Liberty League playoff spot doesn’t happen for us, qualifying for the ECAC championship is still a goal we want to achieve. With a 6-6 record, we’ll need at least two wins from our final four games (or a win and two draws, or even four draws) in order to be eligible for selection. It’s possible we might need more than that to actually be picked though.

The loss to RPI was extremely disappointing, and was a microcosm of what has gone wrong for us over the past few seasons. While we matched RPI in shots and possession, we couldn’t score a goal and we fell behind in the first half on an own goal after a miscommunication between our goalkeeper and one of our defenders.

We know we need to move on. If we can earn a win on Saturday and hope other results go our way, we can stay alive in the playoff race. The weekend games are at Gordon Field at 3:00 pm on Saturday and 1:00 pm on Sunday.