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#3 Saint Andrew’s Downs Valor Christian (CO) 16-6 Tuesday

Written by Lee Roggenburg on . Posted in .
  There are some interesting advantages to having a Hall of Fame coach for your high school lacrosse team . . . For one, you have a tendency to have a relationship with a Hall of Fame player who is currently coaching at another high school team. Or there’s even another way to build a relationship. Be a professional General Manager for an MLL franchise and then sign that said player. Or have the type of relationship where you could TRADE that player and he’ll STILL play you . . . and not for revenge. Or all of the above? Well, no matter the back story it was clear that the matchup we had in Boca last night was unlikely to occur without that relationship. And last night I was able to complete the Exacta of meeting the only 40-plus members of MLL . . . as John Grant Jr. came to town as head coach of Valor Christian of Colorado, last year’s smaller school state champs. Coach Grant is one of those transcendent athletes that goes by one name in their sport.  Junior . . . that’s all you say and you know who you are talking about.  Casey, Gary, Paul . . . well Paul’s got a couple of choices . . . Quint . . . okay, just sucking up on that one . . . ? . . . second all-time in MLL scoring with over 500 points and first in goals (and he doesn’t even show in the Top 10 of games played, 121 is the Top 10 cutoff) . . . 15 Game Winners, more than 12% of the games he played he scored the GWG . . . that’s not 121 games WON, 121 PLAYED . . . pretty impressive.   But the Hall of Fame coach showed the way last night over the Hall of Fame player.   Saint Andrew’s went on a 9-1 run bridging the late first quarter and the second quarter, encompassing a little over 13 minutes, to ease their way to a 16-6 victory over the visitors.  SA’s offense was very sharp in the run, as they scored on 7 of their first 11 shots, 10 of which was on goal.  The scoring was spread out as nine separate Scots scored goals.  In that first half SA won 9 of 13 faceoffs and were advantaged by 6 VC penalties, which kept VC’s offense from gaining any momentum due to a lack of possessions.  And as the goals mounted in the second it seemed to make Valor’s few possessions even tougher as they started to press to come back and at times tried a little too hard to make something happen. SA’s defensive intensity was pretty much a 48-minute effort last night and they were particularly strong on the hands of the Valor players.  While watching warm-ups I was impressed by Valor’s shooting skills and athleticism but SA did not give Valor enough space to either get a head of steam up or extend their arms on their shots and it wasn’t until the fourth that VC was able to effectively get shots off.  Meanwhile, as the lead mounted the SA players got even more comfortable on offense and were able to get a number of open looks off back door cuts where Valor’s communication broke down. It’s obviously earlier in the schedule for Valor and they will need to clean things up to defend their championship but I suspect they’ll find a way.   It took nearly 7 minutes for the first score of the game and it came off an unassisted right alley dodge by SA’s Nick Iznaga and his short side shot found top right at 5:11.  A little over a minute later it was Matt Adams with the spin dodge behind the net, as he beat his defender to the front right and finding the top right corner with the left hand, drawing a penalty on the play.  Valor got one back while shorthanded as Ian Acheson won the possession battle off an over and back violation, dashed down the outside right, split a couple of defenders to get to the crease and finished near the crease for 2-1 at 3:22.  But SA came back with 3 goals in the last 1:26 to open up the 5-1 lead.  Mark Heatzig worked the left wing and the middle before spinning left and placing a bounce shot in the upper part of the net and that was followed by Nick Yi taking a feed from Xavier Mccormack as Yi finished the fast break in the middle and finally Tito Thompson unassisted as he went from right GLE up the wing and dodging to the middle for the short side shot to end the period. Valor chipped into the lead at 10:06 after turning the ball over on the ride, with Grayson Goodyear taking a top left wing pass from Austin Taupe on the lower wing with his back to goal and ripping one into the top left corner.  But that was it for the half for them as SA ran off the next 6 goals to close out the half with an 11-2 lead.  At 9:31 Carl Klepper took the Adams feed as he cut towards the cage and finished to the low left and 41 seconds later he scored unassisted on the curl from behind the left of the cage.  Thompson took advantage of an EMO to twice face dodge the right alley to get to the front of the net for the low shot at 8:00 and then at 4:52 it was Heatzig cutting to the left crease, with Klepper feeding him from right GLE.  Then in the last minute of the period it was Klepper finding Mccormack on the left wing for the step down and finally Connor Hopkins finding Iznaga up top left for the step down to end the half. Gianni Orlando opened the scoring in the third for Valor as Sean Traynor found him on the left wing for the step down low shot at 8:23.  SA responded at 5:09 as Lizzio went down the right alley for the top right corner shot and at 3:16 SA’s Anthony Molle took the behind the net feed from Adamsas he cut down the middle for the open shot in front to make it 13-3 after three. Valor scored the first two goals of the fourth to close to 13-5 as Saupe got off a 15 yard rip from up top at 10:56 and then at 9:22 Traynor found Joseph Anderson for the left hand shot from up top.  SA closed their scoring out with three goals in a little over two minutes.  Klepper finishing the Lizzio feed from up top in the middle at 5:40 was followed by Molle finding Yi on the fast break 27 seconds later and Yi taking a Hopkins feed for the left wing step down with 3:24 remaining.  Montana McLaughlin finished the scoring for Valor in the last minute with the face dodge from left GLE to the cage to make it the 16-6 final. SA is back in action on Friday as they host Georgia power Centennial and Valor Christian travels up I-95 for their Thursday matchup at Oxbridge.   Team Statistics   Faceoffs:  SA 14-10 Shots:  SA 44-24 Shots on Goal:  25-15 Turnovers:  VC 15-12 Penalties:  VC 7-3   Individual Statistics   SA Carl Klepper  3G/2A Nick Yi  3G Nick Iznaga, Mark Heatzig and Tito Thompson with 2G each Matt Adams  1G/2A Xavier Mccormack, Michael Lizzio and Anthony Molle with 1G/1A each Connor Hopkins 2A All three goalies, Andrew Buzel, Nick Ferraro and Jack Young, combined for 9 saves, many spectacular   VC Austin Saupe  1G/1A Grayson Goodyear, Gianni Orlando, Ian Acheson, Joseph Anderson and Montana McLaughlin with 1G each Sean Traynor with 2A Logan Lee and Jack Liselli combined for 9 saves   Thanks to Coach Seaman and Coach Grant Jr. for talking to me before and after the game.    

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