Some late-game flair and heroics from Grant Ament and Tom Schreiber lead the Archers to a comeback 9-7 win over the Waterdogs on Tuesday night.

The Waterdogs were once again bit by the scoreless bug, and they gave up another second-half comeback. The ‘Dogs are still looking for their first win.

Breakdown

The game started slowly on both sides. In the first quarter, the teams combined for five goals, two of which came in the final minute of the quarter.

An Archers’ offense that was talked about ad nauseam looked pedestrian to start the game. In the early stages, the Archers had a problem holding on to the ball (12 first-half turnovers) and showed signs of a team on the second leg of a back-to-back.

The ‘Dogs’ offense didn’t look bad in the first quarter and played the game going forward most of the quarter thanks to sloppy play from the Archers. Even though they had the ball and got shots off, they had trouble figuring out Drew Adams, who saved five shots (of his six saves) in the first quarter.

Adams’ wall started to show cracks in the second quarter, and thanks to some great play from Kieran McArdle, the Waterdogs were able to go into halftime with a 6-3 lead.  

But as Waterdogs’ head coach Andy Copelan said, “Halftime scores are usually meaningless.” And the Waterdogs had to be aware of that after blowing a halftime lead in their first game.

Things changed drastically in the second half. The third quarter started all Archers, and their energy levels surprisingly suggested they were the fresher team. The Archers were diving for the endlines on missed shots, and on defense, they forced multiple shot clock violations early in the second half. 

Adam Ghitelman picked up right where Drew Adams left off in net when he entered the game in the second half. The Archers’ goalie continued his hot form and only let in one goal while stopping 10 shots in the second half. 

On offense, Grant Ament continues to look more than comfortable against (and with) players he looks up to, and his three third-quarter points (four points in total for the game) propelled Archers to their first lead in the game.