Detroit 11, Mercer 10

Hey, so that ended up being a much happier occasion that the Wolverines’ last time out.

Tempo Free

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

Overall, this really wasn’t that bad a game statistically, at least from an efficiency standpoint. That offensive mark is pretty good, and the defensive mark isn’t really that poor. Of course, it’s the fact that Mercer was the opposition that scares you. This is a team that a conference contender (any conference) should have had its way with.

Detroit lost the possession battle, so that draws a little more perspective to the whole deal (and moreso that the possession battle was dominated in the second half by Mercer), but still, there are pieces here to work with. They’d better get into game shape fast.

Notes

We shall start on offense, a unit that was expected to carry a young Detroit defense early in the year before the young Titans get up to speed. That pretty much happened, with one of the most efficient outputs in recent memory (only one game last year – the 13-7 win over Canisius – saw a better offensive mark from the Titans). Strength of competition, etc., but approaching program-highs is a good thing.

Surprisingly, much of the offense seemed to run through midfielder Scotty Drummond. While he performed well last year, attackmen Alex Maini and Shayne Adams were thought to be the main stars (with Mike Birney going bombs-away from a little farther out). Drummond had two goals and three assists to lead the team in scoring, while Adams (3G) and Maini (1A) didn’t play as big of roles. I do like attack Tom Masterson, whose 2G, 1A line tied him with Adams for second-leading scorer.

Defensively, I’ve been predicting that we see less of an aggressive unit – and against more talented teams I still think we will, at least to start – but the Titans caused 11 turnovers in 34 defensive possessions, a pretty big number. Defensemen Joe Gifford (4) and Jordan Yono (3) led the way, with SSDM Troy Dennis notching two of his own. Mercer is a naturally turnover-prone team, from what I’ve seen of them, and it seems UDM was more than willing to help them along the way.

Playing slightly less aggressively might bear itself out in the penalty department, where almost all of Detroit’s transgressions were weird, non-foul-type things. There was a team penalty assessed for illegal procedure, attackman Alex Maini didn’t give enough space on a quick restart and was later called for unsportsmanlike conduct, the Titans were nabbed with too many men on the field once, and faceoff specialist Damien Hicks was called for holding. None of those are the slashing/unnecessary roughness type that Detroit’s typical aggressive style has resulted in during past years.

In goal, redshirt freshman Connor Flynn was good statistically, saving .615 of shots faced. Since I couldn’t make it to the game, I can’t say for certain whether the nature of the performance was allowing softies, robbing easy looks, etc. Either way, it’s safe to say that there won’t be a huge dropoff in net without A.J. Levell (and probably thanks in part to Levell, who is a volunteer assistant on the staff).

Detroit did not win the faceoff X, something that would have been a little surprising to me coming into the weekend. However, it’s clear that GB wizard Jordan Houtby will be missed at LSM on those draws, and Mercer is going to be a bit better on faceoffs than I anticipated. Damien HIcks got most of the run, winning just fewer than half, while Tyler Corcoran and freshman Benjamin Gjokaj didn’t get enough reps to say anything definitive about their performances.

For Mercer, it was a much more balanced scoring effort than we saw against Michigan (where nine of 13 total points came from two players). The Titans allowed 15 points – ten goals and five assists – with no single player notching four himself. Attackman Chris Baxa had two goals and two assists to lead the way.

Elsewhere

Detroit recap. Official box score. Photo gallery. Mercer recap.

Up Next

Yay, it’s a big week on GLS with the in-state Division-1 battle slated for Wednesday at Ultimate Soccer Arenas in Pontiac. Look for plenty more content leading up to that one in the next couple days.

The relative results between the two teams against Mercer give an indication that the Wolverines could have more than a puncher’s chance in this one…