The Sunday Stroll: Invitational Weekend

Bellevue and Mercer Island each remained unbeaten in league play, but both also did very well in representing our state this past weekend.  Bellevue knocked of a top Oregon program in Lakeridge before taking a 9-5 decision over Guilderland of New York.  Meanwhile, Mercer Island knocked off Oregon power Lake Oswego as well as defending Oregon champion, Lincoln. Photos by SoundLacrosse.com.

Sound Lacrosse – Photos of the Week

The Division I Stroll…

• Biggest stories from the week that was:
  • If you pull Bellevue and Mercer Island out of the mix and do some score comparison you could come to some real interesting conclusions as to who is the next best team in the league this season.  Granted weather, injuries and several other factors lead to the various outcomes of games, but always fun to compare nonetheless, so here is an example:  Issaquah beat Eastside Catholic by three (8-5) while King’s Way beat Eastside Catholic by eight (19-11) yet beat Lake Tapps (13-12) and Lakeside (12-11) by just one each.  Maybe the Southwest Conference is much more improved this year than first thought.  Who knows?  Makes for good discussion, makes the games entertaining and meaningful to follow. 
  • In the Northeast Conference, Skyline took a big one over Lake Washington.  The Spartans fell to the Kangs a year ago and missed the playoffs so the win was no doubt a good confidence booster and much needed after an early season loss to Eastlake and losing top freshman midfielder, Cameron Saffle to a knee injury.  Skyline finished their week with two come-from-behind wins at the Northwest Invitational over Palo Verde (Nevada) and Jesuit (Oregon).
  • No real upsets this week and several lopsided scores, but as mentioned before a few surprising scores in that Lake Tapps and Lakeside each played King’s Way to one goal games. 

• Standout Stat Lines:
  • Ryan Benz, JR, Skyline – The lefty attackman scored 17 goals this week in 4 games for the Spartans.  He scored a career high 7 in a big comeback win over Portland Jesuit.
  • Matt O’Neill, SR, Issaquah – Scored a career high 11 points on a career high 6 goals against Sammamish.  The attackman also added a hat-trick in a win over Palo Verde in the Northwest Invitational.
  • Robert Abbot, SR, Puyallup – Panthers have fallen on hard times and yet to post a win this season but not for the lack of effort on Abbot’s part.  The midfielder is averaging over 3pts per game and leads the league in groundballs with 11 per game.  This week alone he registered 10 points (7g, 3a) and 24 groundballs in just two games.

• Best match-ups of the upcoming week:
  • 3/26  Eastside Catholic @ Eastlake – Early inside track on Northeast #3 for the winner of this one.
  • 3/27  Bainbridge @ Bellevue – Bellevue beat up on LW, LW beat the Spartans… gotta believe this one will be much closer though.
  • 3/27  Mercer Island @ Issaquah – This one always gets rowdy and this year will be no different.
  • 3/29  Lake Tapps @ Lakeside – Each played King’s Way to a one goal game, conveniently they meet up this week!
  • 3/30  Bellarmine Prep @ King’s Way – Lions started rough and need this one to bounce back into contention.
  • 3/30  Issaquah @ Bellevue – This might decide the race for the Northeast Conference just three weeks into the season.

The D2 Stroll…

·         A team from the Cascade Conference will undoubtedly argue with this, but after this week it appears the front runners in Division II this year might be Overlake and Seattle Prep.  Each squad is showing the experience of having played in Division I last season.  However, if both do remain at the top of their respective conferences they would be scheduled to meet in the semifinals at season’s end (see our bracket predictions below).  Granted the season is still very, very young but always fun to talk playoffs, make predictions and spice up the conversations.  Let’s continue to take a look conference by conference:

• Skagit Conference– As a whole, the conference is struggling at a combined 5-12, with only one team (San Juan) at over .500 sitting.  Great to see San Juan sitting at 2-1 though after a dismal 2011.  North County is 1-1 and still looks to be a contender for the conference title but tough to see anyone from the Skagit going deep in the playoffs at this point.
• Cascade Conference – There are five unbeaten teams in Division II still and over half of them reside in the Cascade Conference.  The conference is 14-7 as a whole.  Sounds like a strong early season vote for toughest conference in 2012.  The good news for the conference champ is that they would avoid the Metro-South champ (likely Seattle Prep or Garfield) and the Evergreen champ (likely Overlake) until the Division II final.  Snohomish, Everett and Providence are the unbeatens while Edmonds sits at 3-1 having shown fairly well early losing just to Providence.  2011 quarterfinalist, Wenatchee is 1-3 but should still challenge as one of the five fighting for three playoff spots; a very tough conference indeed! 
• Metro North – Nathan Hale made a huge statement this week pulling out an 11-10 win over Garfield.  Impressively, the Raiders used a very balanced attack getting goals from eight different players as no one scored more than two.  Hale’s only loss so far is an opening game loss to Seattle Prep and the Panthers have shown they are clearly no slouch.  Hard sorting out the next three in the conference.  Blanchet beat Ballard early season in overtime but roughed up by Garfield this week.  Ballard pulled out an overtime win of its own over Roosevelt this week and has already been roughed up by Prep.  Roosevelt will play Prep and Blanchet this coming week to help muddy the waters.
• Metro South – Seattle Prep crept ahead of Garfield this week as the team to beat in the Metro-South by virtue of their early season win over Nathan Hale and Hale’s subsequent win over Garfield this week.  All the talk will be settled soon though as the two meet this coming Friday to settle it on the field.  Regardless, both teams appear heads above the rest of the conference.  The more interesting race will be for the third spot at this point.  The Kennedy/Vashon game that would have helped in part to sort that out was postponed due to poor field conditions from all the previous week’s rain.  To date, Three Rivers, Kennedy and Vashon have showed to be above Highline.
• Evergreen –Overlake is still the clear favorite and the Owls put an absolute beat down on Klahowya this week, 20-2.  However, the biggest surprise is not the Owls, but rather the Mustangs.  Redmond has us pulling our collective feet out of our mouths as last week we stated they seemed a non-factor.  Proved to be a very unfair statement considering their only game at that point had been a 13-1 loss to Overlake.  That loss doesn’t seem that bad after Overlake’s showing this week and Redmond pulled the biggest surprise of the week with wins over Liberty, 7-5 and Gig Harbor, 8-7.  Now appears that Mt. Si and Liberty have their work cut out for them if they hope to reach the playoffs.  This could end up being one of the more interesting races to follow.
• Olympic – Despite the rough loss to Overlake, Klahowya also made us eat our words and showed that they aren’t ready to turn over the Olympic crown just yet.  The Eagles clawed that thought away from Gig Harbor with a 11-8 win.  After a 2-0 start, Gig Harbor has dropped three straight.  They are still a playoff team but maybe not quite ready to make as big of a splash as we thought. 

• Standout Stat Lines:
  • Eric Risa, JR, Overlake – The faceoff midfielder continues to dominate at the center “x”.  Risa gathered 33 groundballs in just two games this week including an astonishing 18 in a big win over Mt. Si to keep the Owls atop the Evergreen Conference.  Risa is more than a groundball machine however as he also recorded 7 points (3g,4a) in those two games.
  • Chas Stringfellow, SR, Everett – The midfielder posted 2g,5a and 11 groundballs early in the week vs Whatcom.  These are good numbers, but maybe nothing eye-popping until you realize that it was his third straight game with at least 5pt and at least 10 groundballs.  Though his streak was broken later in the week Chas now has 23 pts and 42 groundballs in just four games thus he is still averaging over 5pts per game and over 10 groundballs per game, a solid all around player in anyone’s book.
  • Roland Deex, JR, Liberty – Shutout are hard to pull off in the high scoring game of lacrosse so we have to give a nod to the junior netminder for backing the first and only one of the WHSBLA season so far.  A shout has to go out to the entire Patriot defense, but it was Deex making 7 saves to keep the goose egg on the board in 12-0 win for Liberty over Port Angeles.

• Best match-ups of the upcoming week:
  • 3/27  Snohomish @ Everett– We’ll see how far Everett has truly come.  One thing is certain, one team will no longer be unbeaten!
  • 3/28  Mt. Si @ Redmond– Winner will take hold of the Evergreen #2 spot.
  • 3/29  Blanchet  @ Roosevelt – Blanchet beat Ballard, Ballard beat Roosevelt… Can Roosevelt beat Blanchet to complete the circle?
  • 3/30  Garfield @ Seattle Prep – Huge match-up in the Metro-South should have Final Four type feel to it.
  • 3/30 Three Rivers @ Kennedy – Combined with game the next day vs Vashon this should sort the race for #3 in the Metro-South.
  • 3/31 Three Rivers @ Vashon – Big weekend for the Coyotes to stay in the chase.

Lacrosse The Country…

Continued coverage of WHSBLA alumns in the NCAA ranks

·         Sam Snow (Bainbridge) scored 4 more goals to help Fairfield to a win over Hobart. He was also recently named ECAC player of the week!

• Drew Snider (Garfield) and Landon Carr (Maryland) each scored for Maryland, but the Terps dropped a tight one to North Carolina.
• Kevin Powers and Jake Fritz, both of Issaquah, are 1-2 in scoring for Domincan in NCAA Division II play.
• Lachlan Murphy (Skyline) scored his first two goals of the year for RPI in a win over Manhattanville.
• Caldwell Rohrbach (Garfield) transferred from Saint Lawrence to Gettysburg and had his first 2-goal game for the Bullets.

Lacrosse Four Thought…

Who has the best shot (of the five left) to remain unbeaten in Division II?

Which is the bigger game: Bainbridge @ Bellevue or Mercer Island @ Issaquah?

What are your Final Four predictions for WHSBLA Division I?  Division II?

Parting Shots…

No great quotes or comments this week from the fans so instead, in honor of NCAA basketball’s March Madness we’ll leave you with some brackets to start some conversations:

2012 WHSBLA Division I Playoff Bracket Predictions

2012 WHSBLA Division II Playoff Bracket Predictions

We’ll give a shot to the best emails of the week and include your comments/quotes/etc in next week’s Sunday Stroll.

Time to hear from you!  Feed us your thoughts, edits, questions… bring it!          EMAIL: TheSundayStroll@gmail.com