RoyalBroomball: Welcome

The Bethel Royals are preparing for their third season in earnest. With new Captain Chris Painter heading the team, they are optimistic that they can bounce back after a disappointing loss to Miami Ohio at Nationals last spring.

 The Royals will be playing in the Blaine league, once again calling the lower division home after losing 7 players to graduation and transfer this summer.  That's the nature of collegiate teams in any sport but it is especially challenging in a sport that leans so heavily on experience. But that is why the team was started and we're gonna keep pumping out more roster runoff into the talent pool as long as we can.

 The Blaine league is providing some exciting new features this year. Hopefully one of those features includes qualified referees but it will primarily be the introduction of the pointstreak stat tracking system. This will allow players to track statsitics, standings and even individual team records from season to season. You can access the Bethel pages from the links below.

Stats: http://www.pointstreak.com/players/players-team-roster.html?teamid=162574&seasonid=3477

Records: http://www.pointstreak.com/players/players-team-records.html?teamid=162574&seasonid=3477

Schedule: http://www.pointstreak.com/players/players-team-schedule.html?teamid=162574&seasonid=3477

The Bethel Royals ended their regular season with a 5-5-2 record, which exemplifies a season filled with ups and downs. The Royals featured 8 new players this year, which led to some rough adjustments as new players learned their positions while trying to adjust to the nuances of the indoor game.

Though they were unable to win any games in the Midwestern Championships the weekend of the 22nd, they lost two games by just one goal and scored twice on the "B" Outdoor State Champion Bogeys. The Royals received high praise for their competitiveness, potential and willingness to take on such a challenging and prestigious tournament as Midwesterns is. The team saw marked improvment in many areas over the weekend and hope to carry those lessons into the National Championships at the end of March. There the Royals will look to defend their 2007 Collegiate title, as well as spend time watching games and meeting players.

The Bethel Royals will wrap up their Blaine League Playoffs this Thursday night, the 28th, when they play Pigs Eye Pirates for the consolation bracket championship. Come out and see the Royals while they're still in the state because the next time they play is in North Dakota!

The Bethel Royals wrapped up the first half of their regular season schedule with an ugly 8-3 loss to JB Crew this past Thursday, which dropped them to 2-3-1 on the season. Missing their goalie for the second straight game (both of them losses, not surprisingly) the Royals were unable to protect their stop gap keepers from the Crew's dangerous offensive attack.

The Royals will look to rebound after the break but they will have to do it minus their two leading scorers. Matt VanBenschoten and Marcus Kramer will be spending the month of January in Europe, returning just after the Winter Carnival Tournament at the end of the month. It will be a rough stretch for the team but Captain Luke Dornbush is hopeful, "[Matt and Marcus] are two of our best players and it'll hurt to lose them for a whole month in the heart of our schedule. But without them to lean on it's a great opportunity for our younger players to step up and make some plays," he says. "I think it'll be better for us in the long run."

Season Stats:

8 - Matt V.
3 - Marcus K.
2 - Chris P.
2 - Neil J.
2 - Tim V.
2 - Matt M.
1 - Cooper
1 - Paul F.
1 - Cory L.
1 - Luke D.