BULLETIN: May 18, 2013 — The career goals mark has fallen
With a goal 4:29 in into the first half of a 19-6 VISAA Class AA championship victory Richmond (Va.) Collegiate, Carly Reed, the UNC-bound attacker for Alexandria St. Stephen’s/St. Agnes (Va.) set what is believed to be a new national record for lacrosse goals in a four-year high-school career. She had five goals in the win which gives the Saints a mark of 29-1, and gives Reed 475 career goals.
The crafty senior had broken the existing National Federation mark of 443 goals, set by Shair Masun of Clarkstown (N.Y.) North on May 7 with a hat trick against Oakton Flint Hill (Va.). A number of published records, however, showed that at least three other high-school players had exceeded that mark.
Reed tied the highest known four-year career mark yesterday of 470 goals with a six-goal outburst, again with Flint Hill the opponent. The holder of the previously known mark was Kate Ferris of Carthage (N.Y.), who is now with the University of Massachusetts.
Given the fact that the National Federation of State High School Associations has only started publishing records recently, there is a chance that other numbers may be unearthed.
But if there is, Reed’s run to the record was pretty remarkable. St. Stephen’s/St. Agnes had to play six games in eight days in order to win the ISL/VISAA double, all the while knowing that a team loss would mean the end of the season.
Reed’s running mate, Besser Dyson, had eight assists for the second straight game to extend her own record to 149.
May 18, 2013 — A policy shift that could benefit boys’ varsity field hockey
Today’s Game of the Day
Newtown (Conn.) at Cheshire (Conn.)
Our Game of the Day feature ends with the end of the regular season for Cheshire (Conn.). The Nighthawks are 9-7 on the season with a pair of one-goal losses to state championship contenders New Canaan and Wilton. It has been a difficult time for the town of 28,000 just over the border from New York after the senseless school shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. A win at 12-3 Cheshire will help.
This article’s argument is an astounding reversal from the position the Women’s Sports Foundation took in comments made by former WSF president Donna Lopiano on this same subject.
The comments that the former Raybestos Brakette made were part of a 2002 segment on Real Sports, the fine HBO sports magazine series. In it, Lopiano made the case against boys’ participation in field hockey because of a century of underrepresentation of girls and women in athletics overall rather than examining the specifics of the game of field hockey.
This week’s op-ed, written by a lawyer, makes the same case this site has made since 1998 — that Title IX works both ways, and should be invoked to give boys a chance in a sport if there is no comparable all-male outlet. And hopefully, this gives more coaches and ADs around the country a basis to start more boys’ varsity field hockey programs.
May 17, 2013 — Things to watch out for in the Division II and III championships
Today’s Game of the Day
Eden Prairie (Minn.) at St. Paul Cretin-Derham Hall (Minn.)
Eden Prairie has been skimming along with a 9-1 record, with its only loss to Willamette Loyola Academy (Ill.). The Eagles, however, have a week to go before its regular-season show down with last year’s nemesis, Minneapolis Blake School (Minn.). Today’s game against Cretin-Derham Hall will show how far the Eagles have progressed.
This weekend, the NCAA crowns its Division II and III women’s lacrosse champions.
Eight teams from vastly different backgrounds will come to Stevenson University in Owings Mills, Md. Two will prove their mettle and come home with a gold, glass, and wood plaque emblematic of their endeavor, will, teamwork, and effort.
Here’s a look at the Division III semifinals, which, if you remember last year, should be familiar to you: it’s the exact same matchup as a year ago:
SALISBURY vs. MIDDLEBURY
In 1999, when these two teams first met up, Middlebury soundly beat the Sea Gulls 16-2. It’s not going to be like that this time around. It will be a classic battle between Salisbury’s offense (which has been averaging more than 16 goals per game) against the Middlebury defense, which is one of the nation’s best thanks to Hall of Fame coach Missy Foote’s vaunted zone defense.
TRINITY vs. CORTLAND
Cortland has had the most NCAA Tournament appearances without making a national final, having qualified 17 times. The last two years, Cortland has been ousted by two goals, and they hope to make it a closer finish this time against your defending national champions.
In Division II, there is destined to be a Long Island team in the final. But everything else is, as usual, hard to predict:
LIU-POST vs. ADELPHI
These two teams have won six out of the last NCAA titles. They normally meet in the regular season, given the fact that their campuses are located about 11 miles apart out on Long Island. But Adelphi has beaten Post four out of the five times they have met in the NCAA Tournament, and it should be a very contentious battle.
ROLLINS vs. STONEHILL
Stonehill is back to the national semifinal, trying to win its first national championship since 2005. Rollins is in only in its sixth season as a varsity program, yet could very well be the first Florida college to win an NCAA national championship. The Tars are looking to show last year’s season wasn’t a fluke.
May 16, 2013 — A chase into the stratosphere
Today’s Game of the Day
Villanova Academy of Notre Dame de Namur (Pa.) at Newtown Square Episcopal Academy (Pa.)
Something always seems to happen when these two teams get together, either on the hockey or on the lacrosse pitch. This is the reverse of a 16-15 Episcopal Academy victory on April 23rd.
Before the spring of 2013, there was only one recorded instance of a high-school lacrosse player breaking the 100-assist barrier for a single season.
This year, there are two.
And their seasons aren’t even over yet.
Besser Dyson is a senior at Alexandria St. Stephen’s/St. Agnes (Va.), and her team plays tomorrow against Potomac Flint Hill (Va.) in the semifinals of the Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association Tournament, being staged this year at Richmond (Va.) Collegiate. Dyson, who is going to the University of Virginia, has recorded 133 assists in the Saints’ 28 games this season.
Corinne Wessels is a junior at Manassas Osbourn Park (Va.), and the Yellowjackets start the Virginia High School League’s Northwest Regional Tournament next Tuesday at 6 p.m. against Ashburn Broad Run (Va.). Wessels, who is headed to Northwestern after her senior year, has 135 assists this season.
Eight times this season, Wessels has recorded double-digits in assists, including two instances of her getting 13 assists in one game. That’s assists, people.
These are two truly special players in an era of undeniably talented athletes playing lacrosse. Go see them if you can.
May 15, 2013 — Dear Tiffany
Today’s Game of the Day
Westwood (Mass.) at Medfield (Mass.)
We’ve had to call an audible because our original game was cancelled. However, this one is a worthy replacement. Westwood and Medfield are rivals in the Tri-Valley League, and this is a makeup from a rainout last week. Westwood, at 14-0, is looking to maintain its perfect season.
Dear Tiffany:
I can’t believe it was 17 years ago today when one of our municipal writers came into the newsroom and told me that you had left us.
Since then, I’ve carried your Game Plan on the back of some of my business cards (at least the ones which haven’t been occupied with QR codes).
It was back then, thinking about the team of young women you left behind, that I first reflected on the impact that a good coach can have on the collective effort of a team — any team. This goes for a task force in a business, or the executive board of a municipal club, or 20 giggling schoolgirls in mid-Jersey.
I’ve gotten to meet a number of outstanding coaches since starting this site. These are people who think of the job as more than just babysitting or getting a stipend for 10 weeks of work.
And in an era in which young people are lumped into a group called “millennials” and saddled with stereotypes about laziness and overt materialism, the young people they coach are capable of the seemingly impossible.
In the last year, I saw a field hockey team rescue itself from a three-goal deficit to win in the last 42 seconds of regulation. In the last week, a girls’ lacrosse team came back from four goals down in just a shade over nine minutes to win its conference postseason championship.
These are two of the best teams in the country in their athletic disciplines, and have had tremendous coaching to get them to that point. And I believe a good coach does make a difference in the performance of a team.
Athletic competition, especially at its highest levels, allows people to show the best of themselves. Remarkable courage, spirit, and cunning have been on display on the hockey and lacrosse fields under some amazing coaches that I have had a chance to meet.
I believe that your exposure to the young women you have left behind have benefited them. I’m happy to say that many of your former players are doing well. Some are progressing in their chosen careers, some are inspiring others to reach higher heights in academia. Others have started families.
And then … there was your predecessor.
His last known location was somewhere in southern Virginia, and he was one vote away from having his sentence halved earlier this year at an appeals panel.
And after these last six and a half years, there are still a lot of truths of this case that have not yet been told. The trail is 17 years in length and have involved many young women, some of whom regrettably would rather not talk about it and be done with the situation.
One of my great regrets in my journalistic career is not having a chance to speak with you off tape on this subject. You did not deserve to have this kind of influence on your team, whether or not he was in the U.S. high-performance system.
Hope you’ve had a chance to say hello to Jim Davis and Betty Logan. Their influence is very much missed.
Yours in hockey,
Al
May 14, 2013 — Behind the hearts of champions
Today’s Game of the Day
Brighton (Mich) at Okemos (Mich.)
Two of Michigan’s better programs have come on hard times recently. Michigan is 3-3 in its last six games, while Brighton is 4-5 in its last nine. Both of these teams could use a win here in order to get a good seed for the state tournament.
With a quarter-hour to go in the Independent Athletic Association of Maryland’s Class A girls’ lacrosse championship game, Brooklandville St. Paul’s (Md.) had Owings Mills McDonogh (Md.) where they wanted them.
St. Paul’s had an 8-4 lead in the final, thanks to a pregame talk from the recently-retired Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, who has a daughter at the school. St. Paul’s also had a head coach in Brooke Kuhl-McClelland who knew just about everything McDonogh coach Chris Robinson was going to do, since she was his assistant at Ellicott City Mount Hebron (Md.) in an era when the Vikings won 103 games in a row and 15 public-school state championships.
But McDonogh, having won 90 games in a row coming into this match, turned up the wick, especially on draw controls, allowing the Eagles to control the ball and the clock. McDonogh won six out of seven draws and scored the last seven goals in their 11-8 win over St. Paul’s.
McDonogh got three goals each from Sammi Burgess and Elizabeth George. More importantly, they got the goals in bunches after winning draws. It’s something into which the Eagles put an inordinate amount of practice time, and the relentlessness in the midfield paid off big yesterday.
The first burst came when Casey Black and George scored goals 24 seconds apart. Then, Burgess’ natural hat trick staked McDonogh to a 9-8 lead with under seven minutes remaining. Twenty-five seconds later, Megan Whittle scored to give McDonogh a two-goal lead.
“It was amazing persistence for our kids, because they really could have crumbled under the pressure,” Robinson told The Baltimore Sun. “We were not getting any 50-50 balls, any breaks going our way. It seemed like a lot of the flow was against us and St. Paul’s was playing great, but we got that little ray of light and just exposed it. A big part of it was our depth. Towards the last 15 minutes of the game we were fresh. We could get to the ground balls and the draw controls and I think that wore on St. Paul’s a little bit.”
While the major offseason question for this program is going to be about how the team will replace 17 seniors, or whether the team will be able to break the 104-game unbeaten streak of Towson Loch Raven (Md.), there may also be a question as to whether the team will match or exceed the strength of schedule exhibited in 2013. While this Eagles team played the likes of Vero Beach (Fla.), Milton (Ga.) and Canandaigua (N.Y.) Academy, it didn’t have Moorestown (N.J.), Alexandria St. Stephen’s/St. Agnes (Va.), or South Huntington St. Anthony’s (N.Y.) on the schedule.
Of course, that may change for 2014. Until then, the Eagles are likely to be the consensus No. 1 girls’ lacrosse team in the U.S., but not by the wide margin that it was last year when it won almost every game on its schedule by at least eight goals.
May 13, 2013 — Ram tough
Today’s Game of the Day
Canandaigua (N.Y.) Academy at Rochester Irondequoit (N.Y.)
One year ago, Canandaigua beat Irondequoit three times, including a 15-9 loss in the New York State Public High Schools Athletic Association Section 5 Class B tournament. The Eagles, however, are primed for revenge.
While three divisions of the NCAA are whittling down their postseason fields left (only 16 teams remain eligible for the three national collegiate champions), another college competition finished yesterday with a story of strength and courage.
Colorado State University has had a very successful women’s lacrosse club playing in the Western Collegiate Lacrosse Associates, a circuit of pay-to-play club teams with locations that span the country from California to the Carolinas.
CSU has also, undoubtedly, noted that its greatest rival, the University of Colorado, is gearing for fall ball this autumn in anticipation of a launch next spring as a varsity program.
The Ram program made a statement over the weekend at the WCLA Division I championship, winning its way to the national championship and a 22-0 record. The capstone was a 14-4 win over the University of California, Santa Barbara.
But behind the numbers is the immense courage and mental tenacity of CSU senior Maddie Garcia. She was one of the leading scorers of an Oregon City (Ore.) team that won the 2008 state championship against Lake Oswego (Ore.) by a score of 23-7.
The human development and family studies major had won a pair of national titles after she came to campus, and this year, the Rams were given the No. 1 seed in the WCLA championship tournament. That distinction, however, has been a curse for some time; no top seed had won the WCLA championship since 2007.
Colorado State, and Garcia, played well through the first two rounds of the single-elimination tournament, but during the semifinal game against California Polytechnic State University, Garcia fractured her ankle.
Undeterred, Garcia had three goals and three assists in the final against USCB. And on basically one leg.
“It was kind of a little bit of a struggle getting here,” Garcia tells The Rocky Mountain Collegian. “We pushed through and look at us now; we’re national champions for the third time.”
And if this is the kind of grit that a pay-to-play club can show, to give everything it can for its pride in a university, imagine what a varsity program at Fort Collins can do.
