On Saturday afternoon, Mike Bocklet owned Alumni Field.
Usually, his teammate, Greg Downing, owns Alumni Field. But Saturday, Downing missed his second straight game with an enlarged spleen and Bocklet, the Stags’ second leading scorer, took his game up a notch.
The junior attackman scored a career-high five goals and added three assists, leading the Stags (4-3, 2-1 ECACLL) to a resounding 15-9 win over Hobart before a crowd of 975.
The Statesmen (4-4, 0-3), coming off of their first win in 20 years over Syracuse, out-played the Stags in a number of categories.
They out-shot the Stags 49-32, had a 48-33 edge in groundballs, and won 18-of-27 face-offs. But Fairfield goalie Mike Kruger made 15 saves, and the Stags offense, despite being out-shot, took control of the game.
“Offensively, we knew we had to make up for some goals today without Greg,” Bocklet said. “I just went out there and did what I usually do, and [the shots] started falling.”
“Mike brought his A-game today,” Stags coach Ted Spencer said. “[The last two games] he hadn’t been playing to the level he’s capable of.”
With the pre-game showers, which drenched many of the fans who arrived early, beginning to let up, the Stags took control of the game early.
Junior midfielder Chris Manley took a pass from captain Josh Thornton and beat Hobart goalie Mike DeSantis, putting the Stags on the board just 2:39 in on a man-up opportunity.
Hobart answered at the 7:05 mark in the first quarter with a goal by David O’Quinn, but after that, Bocklet took over.
He scored his first goal at the 6:31 mark to give the Stags a 2-1 lead, and the home team would never look back. Dan Boudreau (three goals) and Brendan Finnerty added unassisted goals, and the Stags led 4-1 at the end of the quarter.
At the beginning of the second quarter, Bocklet continued his magic. He scored on a man-up opportunity 55 seconds in, then followed with an even strength goal less than two minutes later, giving the Stags a 6-1 lead.
Nick Currie scored a pair of unassisted goals to bring the Statesmen back, and after Brian Stanton extended the Fairfield lead to 7-3, the Statesmen struck twice more, cutting the lead to 7-5 with 3:24 left in the half.
But once again, Bocklet proved to be too much. He scored the game’s next two goals, one at the end of the first half and the other at the beginning of the second, and in the second half, the Stags were able to slow things down and run out the clock.
They put their clock-killing strategy in place midway through the third quarter, and controlled much of the play from then on.
“It’s really nice to see that our offense can click without [Downing],” Thornton said.
With UMass’s 7-5 loss to Penn State, Georgetown (2-0) is now the only unbeaten team in the ECACLL. The Hoyas travel to Fairfield next Saturday for a game Spencer said the Stags are already itching to play.
“I love that we have them at home,” he said. “We couldn’t have scripted it any better…Its going to be a tall order for sure. It may be one of the biggest games we’ve ever played.”
NOTES:
Spencer said Downing, who did not practice this week, does not have mononucleosis, despite his enlarged spleen, and that he has shown signs of improvement over the week. He will be examined again on Tuesday to see whether or not the spleen has returned close enough to normal size to allow him to play. The Stags’ next game is Wednesday at Providence, so if he plays in that game, he’ll take the field without having practiced in a week and a half. …The Stags beat the Statesmen for the second straight year, after pulling off an 11-8 upset at McCooey Field on April 2, 2005….In addition to the career high in goals, Bocklet set a career-high in points with eight. His previous high was seven, on April 4, 2004 against Butler.
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