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Seattle Starz San Diego Tournament Recap
Submitted by walax on Sun, 2006-03-05 13:39.
Right after the New Years in 2006 the Seattle Starz, Tacoma Starz and Oregon Starz traveled down to San Diego to test there mettle against some of the West Coast's best talent in a pre-season shootout. Both Varsity and JV Starz played tremendously, with the JV Starz taking third overall. Mark Dingfield, Varsity Starz coach had this to say, "First, the Starz Varsity owes a big ‘Thanks’ to Jon and Steve for their support throughout the tournament. With their help, the Starz Varsity team had a successful and fun trip to San Diego! The team finished the tournament 4-2, with both losses decided by a single goal. Three Seattle Starz players, Taylor Platt, Drew Snider, and Greg Bearson were selected for the All-Star game and many more received interest for college coaches attending the tournament. Most importantly, the Seattle Starz played each game with class and determination."
Dingfield discussed the challenging schedule and offered the schedule of the day, as well as the summary of the trip. Following a 5:30am wake-up call, the team began play in bright sun at 8am. Shaking off jet lag and limited sleep, the Starz played a gritty game and beat RCLAX by a goal. Our defense, which was considered by many to be the best in the tournament, limited RCLAX’s offense to only a few goals. The offense shook off the rust the second half and poured in a few goals, with much of the offense generated from the midfield. Our next game against the OC Starz was the only letdown of the tournament. While the defense played well in settled situations, we made too many errors in transition and gave-up cheap goals to the OC. Mental mistakes were a problem on offense as well, as we forgot to concentrate on the basics of passing a catching and caused too many turnovers. To the team’s credit, the Starz rebounded well in the final game of the day, handily beating another Californian team in the day’s final game.
Sunday morning witnessed the best game of tournament against the Arizona Starz, who were led by a pair of brothers both attending Virginia next year. Many of our players watched the previous day’s matchup between Arizona and the OC Starz, which Arizona won by no fewer than 10 goals. Seattle played an extremely disciplined game both on defense and offense, with the defense shutting down a talented transition offense and the offense showing patience with the ball. Spencer made a number of fantastic saves in goal to help keep it close and the game went into the final minutes tied at 7-7. Our offense couldn’t capitalize on a few open looks in the last minutes and Arizona managed to pull out a win by one goal. Overall, this was the best game we have played to season and, although we lost, everyone was proud of the fantastic effort and strong lacrosse.
Seattle closed out the day with two more wins. We finished the tournament exhausted and a bit banged up; but somehow managed to pull out a final victory against a good Texas team. Overall, the team had an excellent tournament. Players were exposed to and learned from many college coaches, and enjoyed a nice break from the rain of Seattle. Thanks again to everyone who helped make this trip a success.
Good to see the Northwest represented with class when competing outside our area!