The last thing Rick Sowell wanted to see was his Navy team embroiled in another back-and-forth game that wouldn't be decided until late in the fourth quarter.
But that's what the coach got Saturday, and so you can imagine his relief when the Midshipmen held onto a 7-6 upset of then-No. 19 and Patriot League rival Holy Cross. The victory came exactly one week after the team absorbed an 8-7 loss to conference foe Bucknell, and Sowell acknowledged that the positive result was a boost for team morale -- with a caveat.
"But we weren't sitting around and moping throughout the week," he said Monday afternoon. "We knew we had lost a tough game the week before against Bucknell, one that we felt we had right there in our hands. Maybe you could say we let it slip away. But we just felt like we needed to continue to work, get better, and the next opportunity that we had, we just stressed finishing the job. Was I hoping that a week later that we'd be in the same situation? Probably not.
"It'd be nice to have one of those games where you cruise to a win, but we found ourselves in another barnburner midway through the fourth quarter and this time, we were able to finish the job, and that's by making the necessary plays. That was our focus throughout the week, and we were able to accomplish it."
Navy, which will put its 2-2 record against No. 15 Towson (3-1) at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis on Tuesday in a game moved from 7 p.m. to 4 p.m. because of weather concerns, has relied on a defense that has allowed just 7.3 goals per game -- a mark that is tied for seventh in Division I.
In addition, the unit has given up an average of just 26.5 shots, and Sowell said the defense has funneled opposing offenses into spots where they pull the ball back rather than shoot.
"Ideally, you want to force offenses into areas where they don't want to shoot so that you're taking away their strengths -- whether that's their strong hands or whether it's trying to disrupt their offensive pattern where they feel uncomfortable and are forced to take shots they don't want to take," he said. "We play good team defense. There are a lot of times when we get beat, but we tend to have each other's back, and when we don't, things break down defensively.
"Sometimes that's us missing an assignment and sometimes that offensive player is just that good or he creates that situation. But [junior goalkeeper] John [Connor] has been there more times than not to come up with a big save."