Detroit 8, Bellarmine 12

Detroit played a pretty even first half with Bellarmine, then the Knights dominated most of the third quarter before a late Titan comeback. In the end though, there wasn’t a huge threat of stealing the win, and Bellarmine looked the better team throughout.

Tempo Free

From the official box score, a look at the tempo-free stats:

This was a fast game marked by a number of turnovers for both teams, including many in the midfield (so the settled offenses were more efficient than this makes it seem – they just didn’t reach that point a lot).

Bellarmine dominated possession and was more efficient, so… that’s a guaranteed way to win a game (by definition). Detroit cleaned up some of the things they’d struggled with in previous games, but some of the consistent issues remained.

Notes

Top among those issues is a propensity for turning over the ball – including a ton of unforced errors. The Titans turned it over on 21 of 38 possessions, 10 of those unforced. That’s an unforced turnover more than a quarter of the time, and numbers like that won’t win you games.

“That’s something you try to address every day in practice, and we’re not getting it done,” said Titans coach Matt Holtz. “I think there’s a lot of mental decisions and mental errors, and we’re tired right now. We’ve played five games in less than three weeks, and that’s kind of the first thing to go. It’s not that we’re physically unable to make the plays, it’s that we’re tired and we make bad decisions on how to move to the ball, move to the passes, that sort of stuff.”

Those turnovers have plagued the Titans on and off for years now, and cleaning things up – as Holtz mentioned, they have the sticks to do so – would go a long way toward helping the team achieve their goals.

On account of those turnovers (plus a strong performance at the dot from Bellarmine), Detroit was at a severe possession deficit. I knew going in that UDM would give up the ball a few times on the clear, but I thought they’d be able to make up for it with a strong faceoff performance. At this point, I can’t predict that. Damien Hicks seems to be able to win the clamp (as does Tyler Corcoran), but the Titans can’t get the loose ball to the right spots, and the wing players get out-physicaled more often than not. With good faceoff specialists, the total has to be closer, if not an advantage night-in and night-out.

Offensively, the Titans seems to be dialing in their sticks. They still have some inaccurate shots, but they’re much less frequent (and those that don’t hit the cage are far closer to doing so). A little more fine tuning in time for conference play should be a huge factor.

“I thought we shot better, we didn’t get as many shots though [because of the possession deficit],” Holtz said. “That’s a better defense than we’ve seen in the last game or two, and they made it tough. It’s something we’ve been working on every day, and I think we did a better job. Some guys are trying to be less showy maybe, and just getting the job done, bringing it over the top, and getting a shot on cage.”

The pendulum on Detroit’s defense – as expected – swung back a bit toward the more aggressive play that we’ve seen make resurgences at the beginning of the conference season each year. 17 caused turnovers on 46 defensive possessions (.370) is plenty aggressive. Paul Bitetti once again led the team, this time notching five caused turnovers. Of course, when the Titans didn’t get the caused turnover, it left goalie Jason Weber – in his second-straight start – out to dry at times.

“Jason is a great goalie, and we’re going to go back and evaluate what we want to do,” Holtz said. “We’re kind of doing a king of the hill scenario almost, where you win and stay on, lose and we’re going to move on to the next guy. That really isn’t for the whole year, we’re just trying to evaluate three guys that we think really can get it done. We’ve seen that we’ve got some good stuff, and we’ve got some evaluation to do. We’ll figure out who’s going to start on Saturday, probably on Friday.”

Offensively, Detroit was led by Alex Maini (2G, 2A) and Scott Drummond (1G, 2A), with Mike Birney scoring two goals of his own. Maini was a culprit in the turnover game, with six to himself. Shayne Adams (who also scored a goal on just two shots) also committed three, while defensive midfielder JD Hess had two turnovers, with both unforced.

Detroit killed it on the EMO, converting on four of six chances, and they’ll have to take advantage of those chances, especially against a penalty-prone team like Bellarmine. In this one, it wasn’t going to be enough (though I didn’t realize that a three-man advantage would see all three penalties wiped out with a single score, which hurt Detroit in the comeback attempt).

Elsewhere

Boxscore. Detroit game recap. Photo gallery. Bellarmine game recap.

Up Next

Detroit travels to Staten Island this weekend to take on Wagner, and that should really be a win. The Titans will be prepared, because they have no class to distract them all week.

“It’s spring break for us, so we’ve got all the time in the world as far as when we can get out there and work with them,” Holtz said. “All the film’s cut, that’s what coaches end up doing until 3 o’clock in the morning. That’s all ready to go, it’s just putting the scouting report in tomorrow, get a lift in, practice on Thursday, head out and then practice out in Staten Island on Friday, and then go from there.”

Wagner did win last week (albeit against expansion team Monmouth), getting out of Reverse Survivor contention far earlier than ever before. Still, they’re not very good, and a team like Detroit – which is at the very least mediocre, and probably better as the season ticks along – should be able to handle them, even on the road.