May 29, 2011

Lacrosse junkies on overload this past Saturday… Memorial Day weekend has long been the lacrosse enthusiast’s mecca as the home of the NCAA championships. With the WHSBLA championships taking place the same weekend this season it made it impossible to follow all that was going on. Thank goodness for DVR, On-Demand, smart phones and everything else technology is capable of these days!

The Division I Stroll…

• Biggest stories from the week that was:
• Bainbridge recovered from a midseason loss to Issaquah and a fairly recent dismantling from Mercer Island to regroup and stick it to Issaquah in the semifinals to earn another shot at the Islanders. In the semis, Bainbridge’s pressure defense and methodical offense drove the Spartans to a 5-1 halftime lead before running away with it in the 3^rd quarter. Bainbridge led 10-1 late in the 3^rd before Issaquah showed an real offensive prowess. In other words, the game wasn’t nearly as close as the final score (13-9) would indicate.
• Predictably, Mercer Island earned the other spot in the finals though once again Bellevue made it much closer than many thought they could.
• Congratulations to King’s Way on being honored with the 2011 Division Sportsmanship Award. In addition, Mercer Island’s Brian Bernstein and Northshore’s Miles Sokol were named Academic All-Americans.
• On paper the final was oddly historic and mismatched at the same time. In part historic because Mercer Island and Bainbridge Island are the two most storied programs in Washington lacrosse history, yet the two hadn’t met in the finals since 2007. Mismatched because the Islanders throttled the Spartans 18-3 just a few weeks ago. You had to know that the earlier score was somewhat of a fluke and this title game would come down to the end. Things started much better for Bainbridge this time around as a solid first possession ended in Cameron Parker finding Jacob Knotsman on the crease for pretty catch and finish. However, not much else would get by Islander netminder, Brian Bernstein and Bainbridge wouldn’t score again for nearly 30 minutes of game clock. On Mercer’s first possession, the moment Doug Mahony carried the ball top center to take a run the Spartans quickly dropped into a zone. The Islanders responded by shifting into a bit of 1-4-1 set and managed to move the ball quick enough to allow Zach Stickney room to put a lefty bouncer past Spartan freshman, Reynolds Yarbrough. The next few Islander possessions were very similar as Bainbridge continued to try and drop into a zone when the Islanders would carry up top. The plan backfired as it turned into back-to-back replays, Mahony to Shields. Mahony simply dodged straight ahead into the zone, got it to collapse and simply dumped the ball straight ahead to Matt Shields popping out on the wing for identical catch and high rips. Bainbridge quickly abandoned the zone idea and both team defenses settled in, keepers made saves and both offenses played methodic patient offense… 3-1 Mercer at the end of the first. Bainbridge two great chances in the 2^nd quarter. The Spartans began to cause problems for the Islander clearing game and after an ill-advised good hustle but save the ball in your own defensive end play, Bainbridge’s Alex Crane scooped the loose ball and had a partial breakaway. Bernstein came up with a huge kick save. The other came just before the buzzer as a loose ball bounced in front of an open net, but Jason Ashton’s slap shot attempt bit the post. The only goal of the quarter came as Doug Mahony managed to slide a worm burner through on a man-up possession for the Islanders. Bainbridge had the better of the possession but nothing to show for it in the 2^nd quarter… 4-1 Mercer at half. Third quarter went scoreless and the final 12 minutes started the same 4-1. Considering the methodic slow pace of the 3^rd, the 4^th opened with relative fireworks. Just a minute in, Zach Stickney simply drove solo and Bainbridge failed to slide, an odd momentary lapse for Spartan defense that appeared to possibly be tiring. Alex Crane killed any Islander momentum as he go the goal back for Bainbridge right away with a little hitch and low rip. Bainbridge had life and a few minutes later Crane dodged the alley, was able to turn the corner and put another in with five minutes left. Next minute saw Yarbrough make some big saves of his own to keep the Spartan chances alive. Bainbridge had a chance to clear and failed with 4 minutes left. This allowed the Islanders to kill almost two more minutes of clock and forced Yarbrough to make another save. Bainbridge got the ball back with under 2 minutes to play and pushed as well as they could but the Islander defense was up to the task. Bernstein saved anything thrown at him and the clock ran out. 5-3 Islanders as they captured their first title since 2006 despite being in the finals every year except 2008. The low 5-3 count was the lowest in championship history.

• Standouts:
• Reynolds Yarbrough, FR, Bainbridge – Not the end team result he had hoped for, but the young netminder stepped in at the end of the season and was part of Bainbridge’s late season turnaround to make a run at the title. Yarbrough had played just 3 varsity halves, all at season’s end before being named the starter for the playoffs. He responded with double digit save performances in his first two playoff games, the first two full games of his career! In the finals he made another 7 saves to help keep Bainbridge in it until the end.
• Brian Bernstein, SR, Mercer Island – For our money, Bernstein was the MVP of the finals and showed he may have been the best keeper in the league. Playing in back of a solid defense and a team that possesses the ball as Mercer does, hard for the goalie to show how much talent he has but Bernstein’s abilities were on full display in the finals as he came out of the cage to win groundballs, make key saves at big moments and showed an ability to save a variety of shots. He finished with 14 saves!

The D2 Stroll…

• Biggest stories from the week that was:
• Woodinville raced to a 3-0 lead in their semifinal over Garfield. The Bulldogs, Jackson Lanning helped keep Garfield in it by winning faceoffs and thus possessions but Falcon netminder, Dalton Combs made 15 saves to allow Woodinville to pull away with the 8-3 win.
• Sammamish dispatched Blanchet rather easily in the other semifinal getting hat-trick from Tyler Wright and Tyvan Schmidt in addition to four other two goal scorers. Matt Young dominated faceoffs and won 13 groundballs.
• Congratulations to Everett on being honored with the Division II Sportsmanship Award.
• The championship game matched two league-unbeatens while Woodinville went unblemished overall all season. The contest also pitted the recently named Coach of the Yeat , Woodinville’s Gavin Molitor against the Assistant Coach of the Year in Sammamish’s Travis Wright. So all signs pointed to this being a classic final and the right match-up to decide it all. The game quickly turned into the Chapman vs Chapman as Sammamish’s Sam Chapman helped lock down the Falcon’s big freshman, Colter Clinch while consistently winning groundballs and running up and down the field to clear. Woodinville’s J.D. Chapman established himself as the man offensively from the start. The Totem’s Matt Young looked to have the faceoff edge in winning the first three. However, Sammamish often wasted the possessions he was winning for them as it was Woodinville who was scoring the goals to go up 2-0. Young did manage to win the next one and race straight down for a goal himself to bring Sammamish back. Neil Hones tied the game early in the 2^nd before a two goal run capped by another from JD Chapman pushed the lead back to 2 for Woodinville. Teams then traded goals to end the half. Chapman completed his hat-trick before halftime and Woodinville took a 5-4 lead into the break. The Falcons pushed to 7-4 and looked to be pulling away. Sammamish’s Tyler Wright was held in check most of the game at attack but near the end of the 3^rd quarter he began running some midfield and looked dangerous. He took on almost the entire Falcon defense to put one in the cage just before the final horn of the 3^rd quarter to pull Sammamish within 8-6 entering the 4^th. Sammamish had chances in the 4^th but Dalton Combs made big saves and Woodinville would find the net a couple more times, including another by JD Chapman. When the final buzzer sounded the scoreboard showed Woodinville 10, Sammamish 7 as the Falcon’s captured the Division II title in just their 2^nd year as a program!

• Standouts:
• J.D. Chapman, SR, Woodinville – The attackman scored 4 goals and added 2 assists in clearing showing to be the Falcons leader on offense and leading them to the Division II championship.
• Dalton Combs, JR Woodinville – Combs made 15 saves in the semis and 14 more in the finals. The diminutive goalkeeper was full of energy and his passionate play inspired the Falcons at the defensive end.

Lacrosse The Country…

Maryland got a goal from Drew Snider (Garfield) and some inspired defensive play from Landon Carr (Curtis) in their 9-4 win over Duke to advance to Monday’s NCAA Division I championship game!

Greg Mahony (Mercer Island) was named 2^nd team All-Ivy League in addition to garnering some team awards for Yale.

Lacrosse Four Thought…

Which programs will be on the move in 2012 (reassigned to Division I or Division II respectively)?

Who is on your 2012 Preseason Players to Watch list?

What are your early predictions for 2012 state champions?

Will 2012 be the year a team outside of the big four (Mercer, Bainbridge, Bellevue, Issaquah) can crack the semifinals?

Parting Shots…

No great quotes for you to end the season so we’ll just leave you with some additional thoughts of our own to ponder over the off-season. As always, it has been another great season and it always goes by way to fast. Great to see the league continuing to grow and players advancing to make waves on the college scene.

An early look at 2012 shows it could be Bellevue back on top. The Wolverines return all but two players (neither a starter) from a team that showed well despite their youth. Further, they played much of the season without one of their top attackman as Blake Samuel spent most of the year of injured reserve.

Plenty of great talent still left in Division I as 14 underclassmen fill the All-State selections. May always be some talent moving in from the ranks of Division II as well just as the Jake Bernstein went from DII in 2010 to All-American in 2011.

Bainbridge graduates 13 seniors and returns just 5 players (Knotsman, Ashton, Ingrasci, Gargus and Yarbrough) that saw any action in the final. So, 2012 could be the year for the continually improving King’s Way or Tacoma to finally knock of the Spartans. Mercer graduates their own dozen, 11 of which saw action in the final and their own 5 that saw action in the final (Bernal, Reisman, Robbs, Stickney and Tsang). As everyone knows though, Bainbridge and Mercer are the powerhouse programs and have always modeled an ability to reload so until someone knocks them off you have to put them at the top.

The KingCo conference continues to grow in the lacrosse ranks as evident by the growth and success of the Woodinville and Sammamish programs.

New programs may be surfacing at Monroe and Edmonds-Woodway while the JV program at Shoreline should be joining the Varsity ranks in 2012. We look forward to sorting it all out over the next 9 months!

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