Google AdSense
MI Travels for "Best of the West" Tourney in San Francisco
Submitted by walax on Thu, 2007-04-12 23:21.
Mercer Island traveled down to San Francisco this week to challenge other regional top dogs in a tournament run by St. Ingatius in honor of Jerry Langhammerer, an ardent supporter of St. Ignatius, and and parent of a St. ignatius player.
Though the tourney is billed as the "Best in the West", the hope is to expand it past California, Washington and Oregon. Teams are attending from Oregon and from Washington to add to the CIF teams playing: St. Ignatius, Torrey Pines, La Costa Canyon, and Danville Monte Vista. Lakeridge, the reigning state champ from Oregon, and MI from Seattle round out the CIF competition. Mercer beat Lakeridge last weekend at the Northwest Inivitational held at Mercer, in a great battle leading to a one goal game. They won't meet again down in San Francisco, but they will play all the California teams to see if the Northwest can shake this West Coast stereotype of California Lacrosse applied to the entire West Coast.
Here are the schedules for the Northwest teams:
4/12- Thursday
St. Ignatius Prep vs. Lakeridge - Ignatius wins 14-6
Torrey Pines vs. Mercer Island - Torrey Pines wins 9-7
Torrey Pines vs. Mercer Island - Torrey Pines wins 9-7
4/13- Friday
Danville Monte Vista vs. Mercer Island TBD
La Costa Canyon vs. Lakeridge TBD
4/14- Saturday
consolation games and Championship TBD
***GAME DETAILS MAYBE IN THE COMMENTS FOR LISTED GAMES***
Mercer Defeats La Costa Canyon
After a tough ride against Torrey Pines, Mercer Island came back to defeat La Costa Canyon after being down in the first half. Greg Mahoney scored 2 of his 4 in the last two minutes, one coming in at :41 seconds before the end of the game pushing out the option for OT. Matt wright had a hat trick, Ellis went 2g2a, and Mahoney led with a 4g2a game. Mercer clearly defining themselves as a second half team.
Mercer Drops a Close One to Torrey Pines 9-7
Game planning for Torrey Pines starts with paying attention to their three big threats: Geordi Shafer, a face-off middy who can run and gun, Horning, the 'X' attackman who drives, dodges and finishes too, and Van Langen, another middy who threatens. Torrey Pines is noted for their transition offense, as is Mercer Island, but without their best pole, the defense to stem the tide may be harder to come by.
Torrey Pines pays attention to the obvious players, Ellis and Mahony, making sure both are managed on the field, though Mahony is hard to manage. Mercer also has a transition game, and Torrey Pines has defensemen that won't push out either.
As the contest starts, TP gets on the board first with a big shot from face-off possession. leading 1-0, MI answers back, as the score and lead change hands. The first quarter, after several possession battles, is 3-2 Torrey Pines. to start the second quarter, Mercer Island concentrated Timmy Wettack on TP attackman, Horning, who turned out to have only two goals all night. Chris Brown, the lefty TP attackman, was left 1-1 for the game. in spite of managing the possession time by keeping the ball more in the second, MI manages to win the quarter 2-1 as the score at halftime is 4-4. Both shots and ground balls seem even between both teams. The ball spent a lot of time on the ground in the second.
Coming out of half, Torrey Pines opens up another pair of goals as the only goals in the third quarter. With more than half of the quarter played chasing ground balls, both teams had to feel frustrated with the ball handling here. Coach O'Hearn suggested, "with the ball on the ground so much from the transition game, we are going to have to do a better job of managing our opportunities." Ending the third quarter, MI is down 6-4.
The final quarter brings another quick pair of goals from Torrey Pines, who possesses the ball and find more net with one more goal, but cannot stem Mercer as they drop in two quick buckets inside the last 2 minutes of the half. Coahc O'Hearn had this to say about the 9-7 loss, "Torrey Pines is as good as any of the top four teams in Washington." and hopes that the Islanders will keep their heads up as they play Monte Vista tomorrow. Torrey Pines coach Dax Harrison was "impressed by Mahony's play" and thought Mercer played a great game.