Lake Placid Unoccupied Buildings

Video: Recycling

Recycling at NSA

    By: Emily Laurenzi, Mattia Laudi, Sam Puckhaber, and Martha Smith

JV Hockey

JV Suffers Three Losses

By: Martha Smith, Kelsey Lynch, and Sam Puckhaber

MASSACHUSETTS- This past weekend The Mountaineers JV Ice Hockey Team traveled to Haverhill, MA where they suffered three devastating losses at the Valley Warrior Tournament.  The tournament had nine teams, National Sports Academy finished last.

Jake Ruby in net

At 3:40p.m Friday afternoon the Mountaineers took on their first opponent, the Palm Beach Hawks.  They had a rough start to the tournament with a one to eight loss.  Killian Seidl played in net and got shelled by fifty-four shots.  The one goal of the game was a snipe by Josh Renaud in the first half. 

The team had two games on Saturday, the first at twelve fifty against the Boston Jr. Bruins.  Again the Mountaineers suffered a loss of zero to six, with Jake Ruby.  Ruby had a busy game facing thirty-five shots. The Mountaineers had a total of fourteen shots but were unable to find the back of the net.

The second game on Saturday at 7:40p.m that night was against OHA.  The Mountaineers worked hard that game, but still came away with a two to four loss.  Mike McDaniel played in net, facing thirty shots.  The two goals of the game went to captain, Alex Kwok and Fredrik Eineren consecutively.

NSA goal

As we sat down with goalie Mike McDaniel he discussed what he thought he did well on for the weekend, and also what he thought the team will need to improve on for the upcoming weekend. “When we were heading into the weekend I expected the weekend to be hard because we were playing difficult teams,” he continues saying “but now I think that we should’ve worked a lot harder.”

The team had a rocky weekend and McDaniel shares what the team can do to make things go smoother in the future, “We need to become more focused for the games to come, and stop messing around as much.” But he fires “We did well in our defensive zone, our D-zone actually worked, since the puck was mostly in our zone. The goalies actually played some of the best games this weekend, especially Ruby.”

Captain Alex Kwok claims that the breakdown was a result of multiple issues.  One was the team’s inability to stay focused, along with the fact that they “got lazy” and “stopped working”.  In order to prepare for the next games coming up Kwok claims the team needs to focus more and practice.

Recap: Boy's And Girls Hockey Games

Boys, Girls Both Split Two Game Series

By: Maggie Cross, Mattia Laudi, and Emily Laurenzi

This past weekend NSA’s Varsity boy’s team traveled to Massachusetts for two games against the New England Stars hoping to pull out two more wins.

NSA gathers around the net for a cheer

It happened to be NSA’s fourth time facing off against the New England Stars. “Coach Simmons told us we needed to play our game, Erik Hallin said,  “And watch their cross ice passes.”  Their record against the Stars was 2-0-1 entering the fourth game.

Approaching the game undefeated, NSA had capitalized on the Stars bad game and pulled out a 7-0 win. “We played very well,” said Erik Hallin “The Stars aren’t bad, they just didn’t play well.”

After the first period the score was only 1-0. Three minutes and six seconds into the second period Patrick Hayes scored on the power play.

NSA’s second goal then led to three more, making the score 5-0 by the end of the second. The Stars became frustrated and began taking multiple penalties giving NSA fourteen power plays through out the game.

In the second game of the weekend, after a briliant win against the New England Stars in the first game, the National Sports Academy struggles against its opponent for 5-4.

This is the second loss of the season for the team of Lake Placid, that keeps leading the North Eastern Division with 35 points.

NSA Mountaineers starts really strong the first period with Erik Halin that lights the lamp after 1 minute assisted by Watts and Desnoyers.

The second half of the period becomes really tough for the Mountaineers that give up three goals in 4 minutes, with two powerplays well exploited by the Stars, and see their advantage become a disadvantage.

After 5 minutes of the second period the score is 4-1 for New England, but two goals scored by Kleinhenz and Dymock, when the clock was set on the last minutes of the intermissimon, give the mountaineers hope for the comeback.

The third period remains stalled until the last 6 minutes of game when Widenmaier nets the goal that ties the game. Unfortunately a carelessness in the defensive zone allows the Stars to score the last point of the game, and conclude the weekend with a W.



Girls Hockey

This past Sunday and Monday if you were behind the NSA girls hockey bench you would have heard a lot of heavy breathing and seen even more dripping sweat. With only two lines of offense and three defensemen, the NSA girls hockey team headed to Norwich University to play a two game series against Stanstead College.

The first game the girls caught a break when recruit, Kaliegh Finigan, agreed to sport the red, white and blue. With her addition there was now seven offense, but still a mere three defense. 

Girls receive encouragement from coaches Bill Ward and Kelli Vossler 

NSA's Carina Randazzo scored her first goal as a Mountaineer to give the girls the critical lead. Stanstead was quick to answer slipping one past the goaltender, Lenka Craigova, to even the score. Denisa Krizova was the next to light the lamp, scoring to give NSA a 2-1 lead. Not about to lay down and quit Stanstead battled hard to tie the game up with a score of 2-2. It was Emily Laurenzi, Penn State's first recruit for their new program, to snipe the winning goal for National Sports Academy. 

Come the second game the NSA girls were tired, or so it appeared. Coach Ward described the teams play in the first period as "slow motion" due to the "lazy excuse" that they were tired. Stanstead took an early lead and NSA was never able to recover. With goals by Denisa Krizova and Megan Whiddon, the end result was 3-2 in favor of Stanstead. 

While the weekend was "tiring" and "mediocre" according to offense men Kelsey Lynch, the girls look forward to the town rivalry game taking place on Thursday and Thanksgiving Break which starts the following day. 

Editorial

JWHL Weekend in Lake Placid
By: Martha Smith

Imagine this scenario: you have world-class competition and a world-class venue for said competition.  Now imagine this: for some rather lackluster reasons, the awesome marriage of venue and competition will never happen.  Let me explain why. 

Here at National Sports Academy we have been wondering why as well.  Hosting a JWHL (Junior Women’s Hockey League) league weekend would bring in a level of girls hockey games to the town that is often not seen by residents, it would be at one rink, enabling scouts to stay in a single building and see the elite athletes compete.

Junior Women's Hockey League

There are concerns that are brought up with the idea of hosting a JWHL weekend in Lake Placid, mainly the process of getting to Lake Placid.  The closest major airport is about two hours away.  That means that teams flying in would not only have to get flown in they would then have a two hour drive to get to Lake Placid.

That is an issue to be considered, but once the teams have arrived in Lake Placid there is not much more driving that would be required.  The town is small so unlike JWHL weekends hosted in places like Boston, and New Haven, the teams would not have to stay twenty minutes away from one of the rinks, and thirty away from the other.  Instead they would be able to stay five to ten minutes away from the one, and only facility that they would be playing at.

The question now remains: Why hasn’t a JWHL weekend been hosted in Lake Placid if it is indeed such an ideal place.  The problem that arises is not with the JWHL heads but rather with ORDA (Olympic Regional Development Authority), who refuse to give the amount of ice needed to host a league weekend.

To many people it seems hard to believe that they would not be willing to give up one weekend of ice to host some of the highest level of girls’ hockey.  The biggest issue is the fact that majority of CAN/AM Tournaments are held at the Olympic Training Facility here in Lake Placid.  These tournaments bring in a lot of money for the Olympic facilities and if they begin to give weekends to things such as a JWHL weekend CAN/AM could stop using Lake Placid, and it would result in a huge financial let down for the rink.

Olympic Training Facility in Lake Placid

Because CAN/AM brings in so much money it means that those tournaments get priority over others. 

The question then arises as to why the JWHL can’t just host a weekend there when CAN/AM does not have a tournament scheduled.  That is easier said than done.  CAN/AM has multiple age divisions that come in for the tournaments, and they generally try to get about six teams in each.  If they have only five signed up for a weekend they wait to do the schedule until later, hoping to either have another team sign up last minute, or they will choose to invite a local team to fill in.

By waiting so long to ensure that they have a good number of teams it means that scheduling any other use of ice time can be very difficult.  This is a huge issue for the JWHL, who have weekend game times planned months in advance.  The JWHL does not have the luxury of being able to wait until a few weeks before to know when games will be played.

Another factor is the fact that the JWHL has league weekends generally played on the same weekends every year, that creates even less flexibility in trying to have one of the weekends hosted in Lake Placid.

As ideal as Lake Placid is to host a JWHL League Weekend, without the full support of ORDA, and the corporation of scheduling the hope of hosting the JWHL in Lake Placid is not likely to happen within the near future. 

Editoria

NSA faculty And Staff Pull A Fast One!

By: Kelsey Lynch

Bizzle catching up on some sleep.

LAKE PLACID---At National Sports Academy, the faculty and staff feel as though the student-athletes are unaware of how much sleep is necessary and how it can affect one’s performance. 

How important is sleep to an athlete? According to Cheri Mah, a researcher at Stanford’s Sleep Disorders Clinic, “peak performance can only occur when an athlete’s sleep and sleep habits are optimal.”

Over the last year, the curfew for students on the weekend at NSA has been changed from 11:00 PM to 10:00 P.M. As you could guess, the student’s were anything but happy when they found out. The teachers are “taking away our freedom,” said NSA Senior Maggie Cross. 

With training, practice, and school these individuals rarely have any time to themselves. They participate in races and games all over the country every weekend. So when do they have time to be normal teenagers?

A free weekend is the only chance the students can walk into town, see a movie, or just hangout with one another. With only two days of freedom, the kids like to do as much as they can before the clock hits 10 o’clock.

Although the kids feel as though this change is unnecessary, the faculty’s main concerns are in the best interest of the students.

The faculty’s main concern is the lack of sleep the student’s obtain during the week and the wasted sleep on the weekends. Luke Hudak added,  “No matter what time we set the curfew to, the students will still go to bed an hour or two after that.” So, why not push the time up?

If the students are staying up after the curfew then, making the time earlier will potentially give the students another hour of sleep.

There is also concern with disturbance and the lack of respect for other students when it comes to noise.

Every weekend all of the NSA teams are on different schedules and competing in different events. Therefore, some students may have a free weekend while others could be preparing for a weekend filled of games and races.

If those students who are free for the weekend are loud and obnoxious then the students who need to get rest will have trouble.

When I asked Senior, Martha Smith about how she felt about the early curfew she replied with, “I mean were in High School, people should know when to go to bed.”

Although students should know how much sleep they need in order to perform, that is not always the case. There are some individuals who choose to stay up late and do not abide by the rules of dorm life behavior. 

Apex Learning

Apex Learning

By:Emily Laurenzi

Two years ago, National Sports Academy decided to take an approach at something new and utilized Apex Learning in order to make it easier for the students to keep up with school work while traveling.

The program worked well for luge athletes who were gone for months at a time, however, for the hockey players who missed about one day of school a week it was more of a struggle.

It gave luge athletes the ability to get ahead and stay ahead while they were away, but gave other athletes a disadvantage in the classroom.

NSA students on Apex

Not only the students, but the teachers as well had to adjust to this new way of learning and teaching. Because everything was online, many teachers drifted away from actually teaching.

The year 2009- 2010 was Kelsey Lynch’s first year at NSA, and every one of her classes were on Apex. She immediately saw dramatic decreases in all of her grades. “I called my Mom wanting to come home” Lynch said, “I was so stressed out and had never had grades so low.”

Kelsey Lynch is now a senior at NSA and has no classes online this year. She made first quarter high honor roll along with fourteen other students.

Apex is set up so that if you do not pass a quiz with at least a 70 percent then you are required to take it again until you pass. The problem with this is once you are on your third time taking the quiz it is easy to memorize the questions especially in certain classes.

I believe that the biggest problem with Apex is the amount of distractions you come across. It is close to impossible for a high school student to log on to a computer with out immediately going to check Facebook or Twitter.

Along with the distractions students have access to wiki answers, yahoo answers, and millions of other answer sites; making it easier for students to pass quizzes, however, lowering their ability to learn.

Two years later only 25 percent of teachers at NSA are still continuing to use Apex.  Students feel as if there is much more interaction in class now and they are learning more and receiving higher grades as a result.

Local Kids Moving Up

 Local Kids Moving from Bigger to Smaller Schools with Bigger Results

By: Samantha Puckhaber

 

Lake Placid Bomber High School Logo

LAKE PLACID--- Local Lake Placid and Saranac Lake High School students move on to smaller schools with hopes of bigger results for the future. The amount of local day students is scarce at National Sports Academy but all have had more success, and prefer the school of 80+ kids to their old high school of 400+ kids. These students include: Veronica Gaspar(LP), Piper Moles(LP), Brandon Patraw(SL), and Tyler Randig(SL), along with me.

All the students named above have decided to venture out of their public high schools of Saranac Lake and Lake Placid to attempt to have success at National Sports Academy. For most students leaving their local schools are difficult, and many don't have a choice in the matter. But these five students and I decided to take a journey just down the road.

Saranac Lake Red Storm High School Logo

Making the choice of leaving your local school, the school that we've been with for all our lives, is difficult for any student. Yet, all of us have decided it was time to move on from the life we knew at our public high schools. NSA is difficult for any student, trying to balance athletics with academics strains anyone's successes. Yet for most of us it has motivated us.

Leaving local high schools for something we see as a better opportunity will always cause somewhat of a chatter among towns so small. Not speaking for all of us locals when saying this- but to me it adds extra pressures. It's like having the whole town watch you either succeed or fail, and if you fail it is pretty embarrassing. For the other students they had to leave their homes to come here, there's always two sides to the advantage and disadvantages.

The students from NSA that come from Sweden, Italy, far away in the US definitely made a hard decision in coming to NSA, but it is equally as hard to leave as a local. Of course, boarding students often get home sick and always say how lucky we are to live here, but sometimes we're not so lucky. Living in such a small community everyone in town finds out about how your life is going at prep school, and whether you made the right choice, well everyone has their own opinion on that.

Having interviewed fellow student Piper Moles about the benefits of leaving Lake Placid High school she seems to agree that there is pressures of living in town. “There are always other people in town that question if I made the right decision in coming to NSA and make me feel pressure,” she continues, “But I just brush it off, it's not like they're making my choices.” 

She goes on telling me she will not be returning for a Post Grad year and she's ready to move onto college life. “NSA has really giving me the opportunity to manage my time better,” Moles went on to say, “this school has really prepared me for college, I don't think the local high school here could have done that.”

NSA Mountaineers High School Logo

Another local Saranac Laker has endured what we are going through now, and proves that NSA is a great choice for those who have high goals to achieve. 

Kelli Vossler, an ex-Red Storm player who decided to move on to NSA in 2001 for her junior year of high school. Vossler went from playing small town hockey to what seemed to be “the big leagues.” 

She is now the Assistant Coach to Coach Bill Ward (her former Coach) for the National Sports Academy Mountaineers. 

“NSA really gave me the tools to become what I am today, and helped me become successful in what I'm doing,” Vossler said.
Being an Assistant Coach to a team that has won a national tournament and has had very successful seasons isn't to shabby. Vossler shows what the students at NSA can become and shows that going just down the road from a local school to a prep school can teach you.

NSA Girls First JWHL Weekend

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

By: Maggie Cross

BOSTON- Girl’s hockey put away the skates early this weekend after going 1-1-1 at the Assabet tournament, a record that was not successful enough to advance them through to the quarterfinals. 

The first game against OHA, Ontario Hockey Academy, and ex teammate Sushi Allen, was a great start to the competitive weekend. NSA emerged victorious by a score of 8-1.

NSA Girls looking sharp for a fresh new season

Martha Smith was a brick wall in net allowing only 1 goal.

Unfortunately, Taylar Cianfarano was demolished in the corner while battling giving her a weekend ending concussion.

Due to the dreaded ACTs and TT’s concussion, the NSA girls’ team was down 4 players for the second game on Saturday morning verse Assabet U16. The girls were able to overcome adversity and grind out a 0-0 tie.

Although the girls battled hard, nobody was able to slide the puck past the goal line. Sarah Foss played an amazing game never allowing Assabet to celebrate in front of a home crowd.

Defenseman Kali Flanagan separated her shoulder after being hit by two Assabet goons at the same time, putting her out for a two week minimum.

Saturday night, the girls faced off against their rivals NAHA. Some of the girls felt as though their legs were in “quicksand” and that showed during the first period. NAHA dominated scoring, 4 goals to NSA’s 0.

During the second period NSA started moving their feet but was unable to score a goal. On the bright side, the girls were able to contain NAHA so that they did not put up another number on the scoreboard.



Coach Vossler and Bill Ward try to instill
some fire into the team between periods



A little into the third period, on a power play goal, NSA’s Denisa Krizova managed to ruined the opposing goalie’s shutout but NAHA was not down and out, they came back flying scoring 2 goals to win not only the period but also the game by a score of 6-1.

Foss stood on her head in net keeping the girls from being completely blown out of the water saving 60 of the 66 shots against.

Altogether the weekend did not turn out as the team had hoped but, they hit the ice against NAHA again in a mere two weeks. Until then there is a lot of preparing they have to do.

Coach Kelli Vossler is not discouraged “I think of us as a train” she says “we may start slow but once we get going nobody can stop us.”

NSA vs Albany

By Mattia Laudi

National Sports Academy Mountaineers played on Friday  26th at Albany versus the Albany American, recently reinforced by adding 6 Swedish players to their roster, for their 17th game of the 2011-2012 IJHL season.

The Americans started really strong from the opener drop with a physical play, taking advantage of their good size, and skating realy hard in the offensive zone.

Albany Americans logo

A good work in the defensive zone allows the Mountaineers to respond with quick counterattack thanks to the speed of their forward, allows the NSA team to tie the first period 0-0.

The second period starts better for the Mountaineers, with a better approach in the offensive zone and a good forecheck that procures a penalty for the Americans, well exploited by Tyler Watts thet scores the first goal of the game at 28:31.

After six minutes later a deflection of Kevin Valenti on a shot from the point of Tyler Randig brings the score 2-0 for the Mountaineers.

At 16.31 the Americans get closer with a power play goal scored by Jens Karlsson, that gives energy to Albany to try the comeback, but the second period ends with the score of 2-1 for the NSA, that can go to rest in the locker room with a little advantage.

The third period starts positive for NSA that after 4 minutes scores a goal with Kevin Valenti that snipes from the top of the circles and brings the Mountaineers ahead with two goals of discrepancy.

Patrick Heyes, NSA forward

Other two goals for the NSA by Tylor Widenmaier and Patrick Heyes abate the game, with an important W for the NSA that still leads the conference with 31 points and 17 games played.

After the game coach Simmons seemed pretty happy for the victory but he gave some advices to the team:” That’s a good W for us” he said” but we have to start playing our game and our system since the first minute of the game.”

Next game for the NSA against the Eastern Kodiaks, is going to be a big challenge for the players, that have to protect their leading status.

Act at NSA

Cross and Smith showing their love for the ACT

Acceptable College Testing?

By: Kelsey Lynch

LAKE PLACID, NY--- At the National Sports Academy, many high school seniors anxiously await their ACT results that may ultimately determine their future.

American College Testing, or the ACT, is a standardized test that is said to measure how prepared a high school student is for attendance at a college or university. The test consists of four multiple-choice sections: reading, English, mathematics, and science. The test takes about three and a half hours to complete. 

Some students struggle because of the long timed sections. One NSA student has actually fallen asleep during the ACT leaving 50 questions blank.

All NSA students are on a tight schedule that consists of school and training everyday. Considering this, the amount of free time is limited and with other schoolwork, studying for the ACT is generally not a top priority.

As I sat down with two of NSA’s seniors, Maggie Cross and Martha Smith, their faces were anything but thrilled when I brought up the three letters ACT. Their eye rolling gave me the impression that they didn’t want to relive their ACT experience.

As it turned out, my suspicions were right; they didn’t want to relieve the experience; however, they were willing to give some feedback on how the test went and what they liked or disliked about it.

As a new test taker, Maggie Cross had a lot more negative things to say rather than positive.

As I asked her how the test went, Cross-fired back with, “ IT SUCKED!” She then continued by saying, “I don’t think I did very well, I didn’t prepare much and the timing threw me off.”

Although Maggie walked into the test without studying she was still fairly confident that she would do well, having experience taking the SAT. And even though the ACT and SAT tests are very different from one another, they intend to measure the same thing. After taking both tests, Cross says, “ I will never take the ACT again.”

Maggie also cracked a joke saying, “The only thing better about the ACT is that you don’t have to fill in as many bubbles before the test starts!”

Martha Smith is an experienced ACT test taker, who recently took the test for the 4^th time last weekend. Her feedback was not thrilling but more positive then I expected. As she walked out of the ACT room she felt as if she “did better” then her previous experience.

Smith has no experience with the SAT therefore; she has nothing to compare it to. I asked her if she thinks the ACT’ is an accurate test and she quickly responded “no.” She feels, as though, “you can be smart and not apply yourself or you can study for a long time and not take test well.”

NSA Boys Prep

NATIONAL SPORTS ACADEMY
 By: Sam Puckhaber

Heading into last weekend's action, the boys Prep Team had been off to an amazing start on the season with a record of 10 wins and 1 loss. Their only loss came by a margin of one goal, the score being 2-1. The team seems to have great chemistry as is being reflected in amount wins they have in the start of the season.

Prep Team goal celebration

Last weekend the boys Prep Team was off to a rocky start losing in a shoot out to the Northern Cyclones 2-3, with goals by Alex Kwok and Logan Hulse. National Sports Academy played a great game with a good effort, but came up short.

In the next two games the boys came up big, winning both games. Playing the Portland Junior Pirates team and winning 5-2 with goals scored by Alex Kwok, Blake Tarbell, Jack Buckley, and two goals by Josh Renaud.

In a very physical game, with ten penalty minutes for NSA and twelve penalty for the Portland Junior Pirates, NSA shined.

Then, in the next game playing the Massachusetts Mariners, the boys Prep won once more defeating the Mariners with a score of 6-1, with goals by Fredric Eineren, Blake Tarbell, Danny Vistor, Matt Roberts, and two goals by Jack Buckley.

The two game winning streak came to an end in the Semi-Finals by a loss of three goals to one. The lone goal was scored by Tommy Barnes, the teams youngest member, and not only the youngest on the Prep team but also the youngest in National Sports Academy.

Tommy Barnes

When Barnes' was asked how he felt the chemistry on the team is going he says: “Good we're like a family, and bonding happens everyday.” Although the chemistry seemed to be subpar during two of the four games, they still came out big with two great wins.

The boys have had 12 wins so far this season and hopefully will continue their winning streak, and will venture out to Montreal this coming weekend. Hopefully the chemistry that is said to be that of a family will reflect in the on coming games. Having spoken with Tommy Barnes he tells that he is very excited for the oncoming weekend.

Barnes had also given insight to how his experience is going at NSA, when being asked what his favorite part about NSA was he says; “I really like the high level of play, hockey here is great.” Barnes tells that he truly enjoys NSA and all the kids in it. When asked what it's like being not only the youngest on his team but in the entire National Sports Academy community he fires back “Sometimes I get picked on because I'm so young in comparison, but everyone is always friendly.”

Athletic Results: Boys Hockey

Mountaineers Remain In First Place

By: Emily Laurenzi

Lake Placid, NY--Last weekend National Sports Academy’s Varsity Men’s Hockey team went 2-0-1 in three games against the third place team in their division, the New England Stars.

NSA center Erik Hallin

As the top team in the IJHL, the Mountaineers know they have to show up to play every game. “It’s not always easy being the top team,” Erik Hallin said, “You have to learn not to play down.”

On Friday night NSA came out strong with a 6-3 win, never once giving up their lead. Brandon Patraw and Erik Hallin were star players for the Mountaineers each having two goals.

The second game didn’t start as well as the Mountaineers would have hoped. The Stars came out fast and caught NSA off guard. By the end of the first they had scored two goals leading the game 2-1.

Once again in the second period NSA came out slow and the Stars took advantage. By the end of the second NSA was trailing 5-4. Play was steady for most of the third period, until with only 2:49 left in the game, Zach Dymock buried the puck ending the game in a 5-5 draw.

NSA goalie Jakob Rasmussen

“The Stars must have gained some courage after Friday nights game,” said Mattia Laudi, “They came out really hard on Saturday.”

The final game of the weekend came to a start and NSA knew they had to come out harder then they had the previous game. Four minutes into the game, NSA took the lead.  The game remained 1-0 until only 40 seconds remained in the second period when Tyler Watts put one away to make it a 2-0 lead going into the third period.

Two more goals in the third period for the Mountaineers helped them on their way to a comfortable 4-1 victory. Jakob Rasmussen, NSA’s number one goalie, stood on his head, facing thirty-one shots and was able to keep the Mountaineers in the game. 

After each game one player is awarded the “hard hat” for outstanding play on the ice. This weekend the “hard hat” was given to Erik Hallin, Taylor Widenmaier, and Jakob Rasmussen.

The varsity team knew they didn't have their best weekend, however, they pulled through and still remain the number one team in the league.