Author’s Note: Sorry, but I have to update the Belen part of this.  I was working off the MaxPreps roster and there are three names that I have wrong.  Since they combined for 9 goals and 2 assists it’s a whopper.  My apologies to the kids I misnamed and the updated article now reflects the proper ones.  Ricardo Mayo is now Nico Smith, Jorge Suarez is now Dieter Prussing and John Micali is now Victor Mejer!

  Note: Gulliver-St Edward’s pictures from Jen Uccelli and the Belen-BC pictures were provided to me by Orlando Fernandez   Ernie Banks, someone the coaches know but the kids probably don’t unless they are baseball aficionados, once said “It’s a great day to play two!”. Of course he was referring to his team doing that but I got to do the next best thing . . . Two Games . . . Two Locations . . . and a barbecue dinner after the second game! You know those commercials where the person says ‘What’s my super power?” Paul Rabil’s says I Play Lacrosse. Mine is . . . Better not let my family have another way to make fun of my lacrosse obsession. And I really don’t think I have one. I doubt investing skills count.   A quick explanation to make this day’s recap understandable. I was married in 1994 and divorced in 2007.  But a few years ago my ex-wife and I reconciled and are back together. I don’t really have a good term for it . . . and she’d kill me if I said Friends with . . . you know . . . we haven’t legally remarried, but we do live together, so if anyone has a proper term for me, LET ME KNOW.  Please! So on Friday, I turned to Marcela and said, want to go to Miami for the day tomorrow?  I promise I’ll take you to a really good dinner! And I really did mean it. She’s Colombian and always likes an excuse to go to Miami, while I tend to think of Miami as a place for a lacrosse game and a cruise ship.  Certainly since Cafe TuTu Tango closed. And on top of that she actually likes the sport.     So off we went to Gulliver Prep for the first game at 1:00pm. Gulliver’s a pretty cool little campus and by chance we ran into Joanna’s Marketplace, which is actually better than the now closed Annie’s in Jupiter.  Teriyaki Flank Steak on a French baguette with roasted peppers.   Mmmmm. Over to the game and a pregame talk with Jimmy Piggot and Doug Bailey, the two coaches.  Fun to talk to both of them.  Of course, both thought the other was the favorite.  I don’t think in all the years I’ve done this a coach has told me they were the better team and were going to win easily. Before the season began I ran into Terry Crowley and he told me ‘rank us 5th’. I was so offended I retorted “just for that, here’s my preseason Top 5:  STA #1, STA Bench #2, STA JV #3, STA Freshmen #4 and Extreme U-11 #5”.  He argued the #3 pick . . .   Gulliver and St. Edward’s are kind of that middle of the pack team this year as far as the upper quarter of teams in the state goes.  St. Edward’s had a heck of a team last year and gave Benjamin all it could handle in the FHSAA brackets while Gulliver upset Belen Jesuit in the second round before falling to STA.  St. Edward’s graduated a lot and is rebuilding some this year while Gulliver is looking for their identity right now. And in games like that usually one team succeeds early, and that was St. Ed’s Saturday.     Watching from my normal second floor balcony position, with the narrow ledge as a work table, in the company of the Hassan’s, who were multi-tasking between watching younger son Nick playing on the field, older son CJ online versus Amherst for Colby (coached by Hobart great Guy VanArsdale . . . had to get that one in) and wife Lucy straining not to reach through the screen to pummel the kid who checked CJ . . . somehow it all came together. What didn’t come together for Gulliver was two things.  The offense struggled and the defense was unable to come up with an answer for St. Edward’s Gage Bartosch, who scored 7 of the 10 SE goals in the game. And most of those goals looked like replays of each other, as he worked the wings to set up shots that hit the top corners.   Bartosch scored three times in the first unassisted, as Gulliver’s only response was from Max Murciano, as he took advantage of a re-start to fire home a left hand shot high.  Bartosch’s goals were off a split dodge from the top right to the middle, finishing with the left hand, curling from the left side up the alley and carrying behind the left side and up the left alley again to make it 3-1. In the 2nd period it was Max Taylor finding Josh Posser from behind in the front of the net for the shot to make it 4-1 at the half.  Gulliver’s offense only got off 6 shots in the half and even though all six hit the net most were from distance and SE goalie Liam Murphy made the saves.  Gulliver’s Rafi Reyes held Gulliver in the game with 7 first half saves, many from excellent scoring positions.     Bartosch then broke the game open early in the third with two more, with two more lengthy efforts, one on each wing for 6-1.  Dylan Parmenter answered back for Gulliver with a short side curl from right behind but that was as close as it got for GP as Ryan Bird finished off the Posser feed, Bartosch put up two more and late in the period Gage set up younger brother Reid Bartosch on the EMO to make it 10-2 after three. GP scored twice in the fourth to make it a 10-4 final.  Hassan from Murciano on the EMO and Matteo Uccelli unassisted to end the game. Really not an exciting game and for the Coaches their teams are now kind of going in opposite directions.  Gulliver’s kids need to dig deep down while St. Edward’s looks to see what is coming up. Gulliver easily won the faceoff battles but just didn’t get a flow going, Bartosch got it all flowing early and often.   Team Statistics Faceoffs:  GP 12-4 Shots:  SE 36-16 Shots on Goal: SE 19-12 Turnovers:  GP 25-21 Penalties:  GP 4-3   Individual Statistics SE Gage Bartosch  7G/1A Josh Posser  1G/1A Ryan Bird and Reid Bartosch with 1G each Matt Taylor with 2A Liam Murphy with 8 saves GP Max Murciano 1G/1A Dylan Parmenter, Nick Hassan and Matteo Uccelli with 1G each Rafi Reyes with 9 saves   Thanks to both Coach Piggot and Coach Bailey for talking to me before and after the game   Thought I’d put this one on top of the section, this might be the picture of the year so far . . .   And on to Belen Jesuit for the nightcap Kind of a funky drive to the school, for what seems like a pretty short distance if you fly between them.  But that’s Miami.  Traffic flows are not smooth.  Felt like I had to take a half dozen roads to get there. Belen is located on a pretty impressive patch of land and actually is large enough to have their own cross-country race course that winds through the campus, although I didn’t check to see if some of it actually ran through the building, which wouldn’t surprise me.  The football stadium was holding a youth soccer game so I was not sure what was going on and called Coach Alan Bellando to see if I had the time wrong.  He then told me that the lacrosse field was BEHIND the baseball outfield, which I couldn’t see from where we were and was probably about another 250 yards . . . yep, this is one big campus! The field itself was really nice, you could call it a fairway. Waiting there for me are two coaches I’ve gotten to know well.  Alan Bellando goes back to Saint Andrew’s with me as I covered son Matt for a number of years and John Sivillo took over for Trent Carter at Barron Collier and is also a Long Island homeboy, complete with a love for the Islanders.  Alan’s probably a Ranger fan, since he worships the Yankees.  John and I share a little more on that end. And sitting behind the spectators was a BUFFET . . . complete with desserts! Both teams were missing a lot of kids this weekend and John’s biggest issue was at the faceoff X, as his starter was out and he did not have a proper backup for the game.  Barron went to the state quarterfinals last season and Belen lost the second round, as mentioned before. Barron Collier has been a steady Top 20 and sometimes Top 10 like last year.  Belen is looking to build towards that goal and they are on their way.     The game itself frankly surprised me a little.  I don’t think I saw Belen last year and the last memory was of the previous year when they took down both Tampa Jesuit and Boca Raton two years ago.  BC held them to one goal last year at home and a game like that should motivate a young program, and on Saturday that’s exactly what happened. Besides dominating the faceoffs, as expected, Belen played a highly intense style and honestly outworked Barron pretty convincingly, as almost all the 50/50 groundballs went Belen’s way.  Barron hurt themselves with penalties and had difficulty on the clear while Belen played a solid game for most of the 48 minutes.  And Dieter Prussing picked a good time to have the game of his life so far, with 7 goals. This is one of the few games I sat near the scorers table and that’s always a different way to experience the game as you can hear all the coaching strategies and importunes (how many times do you hear that word in a lacrosse article?), both at normal decibel levels and raised ones.  It’s a fun way to watch. Barron certainly showed talent but it was not consistent and it looked like last year’s defensive performance might have led a little to complacency in the game itself.  Belen jumped out early in the first as Robert Fernandez led the early onslaught.  Prussing chipped in too and it was 5-1 with 2:41 left in the first before Barron fought back to 5-4 in the second and then the teams traded goals until the first half ended with Barron tying it in the last minute for a 7-7 score.     After that rally it was anyone’s game and if Belen wa going to fade this was the time but they dug down and took complete control of the second half, holding BC to only three shots on goal in the half, on only 9 shots.  Prussing scored three straight in the third, two off excellent feeds and one unassisted and when Nico Smith took the Fernandez feed to make it 11-7 that ended up being the run that carried Belen to victory. BC got one late in the third and they traded a goal each in the fourth but BC never threatened a comeback. This is a good example of one team HAVING to win versus a team who WANTED to win.  The game meant more to Belen and that’s how it was played.   Team Statistics Faceoffs:  Belen  18-6 Shots:  Belen 41-21 Shots on Goal:  Belen 26-12 Turnovers:  Barron 18-13 Penalties:  Barron 9-5   Individual Statistics Belen Dieter Prussing  7G Robert Fernandez  3G/2A Nico Smith  2G Victor Mejer  2A Mark Adams, Carlos Romero and Rafa Bru with 1A each Alejandro Candela with 3 saves Barron Will Asher  3G/1A James Leach  3G Jake Scuderi  2G/1A Jayson Andino  1G/3A Jake Kuhlman and Jack Laterra with 1A each Shane Malloy with 14 saves   Thanks to Coach Bellando and Coach Sivillo for talking to me before and after the game   There was a good scene after the game.  Besides the Buffet, which both teams and parents attended to, there was a nice moment that cleared up a not so nice moment in the game.  Late in the game a Barron player was going back to the bench and passed into the Belen bench area and a war of words ensued.  I’m glad to report that the young man went up to Coach Bellando and apologized for his indiscretion. That’s how a young man becomes a man very quickly . . . So as Lee and Marcela’s Excellent Lacrosse Adventure started to come to an end, after partaking of the food and realizing we were out in the sun for about 6 straight hours and in no mood for a nice, sit-down dinner, we started our way back to Boca. Guess I still owe that dinner. Probably will cost me twice as much too . . .