Bullfrogs Play Some Defense, but Again Rely on Offense
Never mind that the Bullfrogs are the highest-scoring team in Roller Hockey International, Coach Brad McCaughey wants his team to play great defense too.
But McCaughey is finding it hard to teach old ‘Frogs new tricks.
The Bullfrogs won Friday, 10-7, over the Minnesota Blue Ox. Once again, it was the Bullfrogs’ offense that provided their third consecutive victory.
OK, the Bullfrogs did play good defense in the third quarter, which led to goals by Roman Hubalek, Kevin St. Jacques, and Mark Stitt in a span of 2 minutes 17 seconds to break open a 3-3 deadlock.
But then the Bullfrogs held on against the league’s worst-scoring team.
Minnesota (1-4) scored seven of its 21 goals this season against the Bullfrogs. The Blue Ox had scored more than three goals in a game once but scored four in the fourth quarter.
The Bullfrogs (4-1-1) are averaging nine goals per game and allowing 6.2.
“You win this game by allowing the fewest goals,” McCaughey said. “The guys we have know how to play defense.”
They just didn’t want to do it. The Bullfrogs’ first-half defense played in slow-motion. Their fourth-quarter defense was complacent.
“Part of the problem is we know we’re a good team if we have to be, but we don’t have the killer instinct to go out and [shut down] a team,” said defender Tom Menicci, who had two goals and two assists. “We worry more about the offensive part of the game.”
Twice the Bullfrogs gave up goals within 40 seconds of scoring.
“We all moved our feet in the third quarter,” Menicci said of the span that provided the three-goal difference. “Then we saw we could get a couple of goals and we started thinking offense.”
When the Bullfrogs started thinking offense, their defense paid the price.
“We were fortunate enough to hold on,” Hubalek said.
Hubalek, who had not scored in the first four games, turned in his second consecutive hat trick. Hugo Belanger, the league’s leading scorer and RHI player of the week, added two goals and an assist, and Ralph Barahona had four assists.