Same Script, Different Ending – Benjamin Uses Late Run to Beat Jupiter 9-7
Written by Lee Roggenburg on . Posted in Uncategorized.
What a shame that the FHSAA does not have the ability to use a seeding system for it’s Boys Lacrosse Championship. For this was a state final caliber game. Before nearly 1,000 FANS – take note local media – two of the Top 5 teams in the state met last night in the FIRST round of the playoffs in Palm Beach Gardens and put forth an even better version of the backyard brawl of their first game this season, where Jupiter prevailed 6-4. Turnovers for both teams were basically cut in half, both goalies played EVEN BETTER than the last game and the pace of play stayed at a high level for the entire game. Unfortunately there was one facet of the game that was not an improvement and it did have some effect on the game, but not necessarily on the outcome.
This game was won in the last four minutes by Benjamin’s star players converting their chances while Jupiter’s missed theirs’. The signature moment of the game followed a Benjamin time out with 3:32 left. Benjamin’s All-American long pole Jerry O’Connor took a feed on his side of the field and took off down the field, splitting two Jupiter defenders and whipping a 10-yard bounce shot past Jupiter goalie Drake Scheele to put the Bucs up 7-6 with 3:22 left in the game. A simple example of a star player making a star play to shift the game in his team’s favor. Robert Jacobs followed up with the last two of his game high 5 goals to put the game out of reach and send the Bucs to the round of 16 with a huge win over their main lacrosse rival. Zach Crotty’s last minute short-handed goal made the final 9-7.
The game started out the same way as the first game, with Benjamin taking an early 1-0 lead, this time on Jacob’s first on a pretty feed down low to him by Ryan Sylvester. Jacobs caught the ball, spun to his right and placed a low, far-side shot past Scheele at 11:04. And just like the last game both teams basically played much of the first at hyper-speed and hyper-intensity, with each team struggling to hold on to the ball as they combined for 14 turnovers in the quarter (while combining for only 16 more the rest of the game). Jupiter’s Craig Coughlan tied the game on a terrifically-placed left-hand bullet past Benjamin goalie Anthony Cicio at 7:07. Coughlan made a subtle dodge left to free his hands and pulled the trigger. Jupiter was then flagged for two penalties late in the quarter, the second on a very questionable bench unsportsmanlike call and the Bucs took advantage of the 2-man EMO on Jacob’s crease-side feed from McKenna Johnston with 48 seconds left. Jupiter’s Daniel Soviero then stunned the crowd with a solo dash between two players to knot the score at 2-2 with 0:00:1 on the clock. Usually a goal like that in that situation would turn momentum to the scoring team but Jupiter was not able to capitalize on their momentum in the second.
Benjamin went back up midway through the second on Charlie Nicklaus’ unassisted dodge from the left side, putting a bounce shot past Scheele at 6:22. Jupiter tied it up about a minute and a half later on Jesse Foertmeyer’s pretty solo run to make it 3-3, which sent the teams to the locker room tied at half. Jupiter had the better of the play in that quarter but really hurt themselves with their shooting, as they only put 3 of their 10 shots of the quarter on cage. Meanwhile, both goalies were starting to heat up, each making doorstop saves and keeping the game low-scoring. During the period Jupiter had to kill off another 2-man EMO and this time was successful.
The goaltenders stepped it up even further in the third quarter with Scheele setting the pace with THREE crease saves on wide open looks in the first two minutes of the third. Not to be outdone, Cicio responded with close in saves of his own. Shooting percentages strengthened significantly in the quarter and the goalies met the challenge (Jupiter hit the net with 9 out of 11 shots and Benjamin hit with 6 out of 7). Benjamin broke through on another EMO opportunity (Jupiter was whistled for 10 penalties to 3 for Benjamin) at the 7:05 mark on Andrew Packer’s wing shot off a feed from up top by Nicklaus. 46 seconds later Jacobs scored his third from Johnston. A scramble in front of Scheele led to the loose ball feed to Jacobs on the crease. If you added up all of Jacob’s goals they probably averaged 6 feet from the goal. Jupiter was very successful shutting him down in the first game from getting crease looks but the Bucs coaching staff was able to design better looks this time.
Jupiter did not lose heart after falling down by 2 for the first time and countered about a minute and a half later on Foertmeyer’s second on a lengthy cross-cage feed from James Holdt, beating Cicio on a high-to-high angled shot. Jupiter went up a man and capitalized on the EMO to tie the game at 5-5 going into the fourth on Ben Yetman’s step down laser from Peter Cox’s right wing feed. The teams finished with 15 shots on goal in the third and the goalies combined for 11 saves.
Once again Benjamin scored the first goal of the quarter, on Johnston’s unassisted tally off a dodge towards the middle of the field, bouncing it past Scheele with 8:52 remaining. Jupiter responded again on Holdt’s spin dodge at the 6:26 mark, setting up the late Benjamin fireworks.
An unnecessary incident occurred at the end of the game. I went to the ESPN760.com video and watched it a number of times and have the following thoughts:
Go back to the video, use the full screen and take your eyes off the two players and find the scoreboard in the background. You will see that it already is ticking beyond 1 second left before it disappears from view (use slo-motion if you can). The hit then occurs right at the end of the game. Whether it happens with a tenth of a second left or a tenth of a second after the game is not really relevant.
Neither player did the right thing here. The Jupiter player should have pulled up and the Benjamin player shouldn’t have show-boated. Win with class, lose with class. Thankfully, the Jupiter player did seem to let up some (he took his second hand off the stick before impact so it was body to body) and the Benjamin player was not hurt. I remember vividly, as a long-time NY Islander fan, a similar situation in 1993 after the Isles had clinched a playoff series against Washington when Dale Hunter made a similar unnecessary hit after Pierre Turgeon scored. Turgeon missed the next series because he separated his shoulder. This discussion would be even worse if the Benjamin player had been injured. It’s easy to say ‘play to the final whistle’ but that saying is not pertinent to this situation and should not be used as a defense. A 2 goal lead with no time left is game over, not game on. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed. Let’s just leave it at that, with two kids hopefully learning a life lesson.
This game was a story of two sections, the first 44 minutes of the game and the last 4. The teams split 12 goals in the first 44, in spite of what could be called comically bad refereeing. I do not say this lightly.
In an example of life imitating art, I was reminded of the climactic court scene in the movie Philadelphia. The jury foreman is giving his opinion on the law firm’s claims that they had assigned their biggest client’s case as a way to test the Tom Hank’s character’s capabilities. The foreman, a former commander in the Air Force, commented that if he was testing his hot new $300 million fighter craft would he place the test in the hands of his new recruit, or would he send up his ace, his best, his Top Gun? This game has a similar story line.
I placed a phone call to the FHSAA and specifically asked about how they go about picking officiating crews for playoff games. Sources told me that IF the schools are not located near each other they would assign a neutral crew from as nearby as they could, while IF the schools were part of the same area/association then local crews could be assigned. FHSAA admitted to me that this crew from the Melbourne-area (Brevard County) was assigned as a TEST to see how they would handle the assignment! Sorry, but assigning an inexperienced crew to your MARQUEE first round match-up of TWO TOP 5 teams in a round-of-32 game was a BAD DECISION.
And by the way, the crew flunked the test pretty badly.
Having said all that let’s not take anything away from Benjamin’s win. The game was tied with 4 minutes left and the better team won the last four minutes tonight. These teams are really close; if they played 10 times each would probably win 5. But they only played one tonight and Benjamin is going on to face Vero Friday at home. Coach Riordan indicated to me after the game that they had a lot of preparing to do and noted that Vero had also beat Jupiter. That will be a very interesting match-up too. What is to be determined is whether this win took a lot out of Benjamin or will they ride the momentum onward.
For Jupiter, they can take solace in a great regular season, highlighted by their road win over Lake Highland. The future looks very bright for both of these programs as the sport continues its’ growth. Thanks to both Coach Riordan and Coach Loftus for spending time with me after the game.
Final Statistics for the game:
Face-offs: Jupiter 7 – Benjamin 11
Shots: Jupiter 35 – Benjamin 34
SOGs: Jupiter 19 – Benjamin 22 (at the margin this might have been the difference maker)
Turnovers: 15 each
Penalties: Jupiter 10 – Benjamin 3 (I would say the unsportsmanlike late in the first was particularly egregious. Refs, sometimes you just HAVE TO WALK AWAY from the sidelines; this was not the game to use poor judgment)
Individual Statistics:
Jacobs led Benjamin with 5G, Johnston with 1G/3A, Nicklaus with 1G/2A, O’Connor and Packer added goals, with Sylvester adding his assist.
Foertmeyer led Jupiter with 2G, with Holdt, Coughlin, Yetman and Crotty adding goals too. Holdt and Cox added assists.
As for the biggest statistic of the night:
Nearly ONE THOUSAND FANS. Pretty soon we will be outdrawing the Marlins . . .
The game started out the same way as the first game, with Benjamin taking an early 1-0 lead, this time on Jacob’s first on a pretty feed down low to him by Ryan Sylvester. Jacobs caught the ball, spun to his right and placed a low, far-side shot past Scheele at 11:04. And just like the last game both teams basically played much of the first at hyper-speed and hyper-intensity, with each team struggling to hold on to the ball as they combined for 14 turnovers in the quarter (while combining for only 16 more the rest of the game). Jupiter’s Craig Coughlan tied the game on a terrifically-placed left-hand bullet past Benjamin goalie Anthony Cicio at 7:07. Coughlan made a subtle dodge left to free his hands and pulled the trigger. Jupiter was then flagged for two penalties late in the quarter, the second on a very questionable bench unsportsmanlike call and the Bucs took advantage of the 2-man EMO on Jacob’s crease-side feed from McKenna Johnston with 48 seconds left. Jupiter’s Daniel Soviero then stunned the crowd with a solo dash between two players to knot the score at 2-2 with 0:00:1 on the clock. Usually a goal like that in that situation would turn momentum to the scoring team but Jupiter was not able to capitalize on their momentum in the second.
Benjamin went back up midway through the second on Charlie Nicklaus’ unassisted dodge from the left side, putting a bounce shot past Scheele at 6:22. Jupiter tied it up about a minute and a half later on Jesse Foertmeyer’s pretty solo run to make it 3-3, which sent the teams to the locker room tied at half. Jupiter had the better of the play in that quarter but really hurt themselves with their shooting, as they only put 3 of their 10 shots of the quarter on cage. Meanwhile, both goalies were starting to heat up, each making doorstop saves and keeping the game low-scoring. During the period Jupiter had to kill off another 2-man EMO and this time was successful.
The goaltenders stepped it up even further in the third quarter with Scheele setting the pace with THREE crease saves on wide open looks in the first two minutes of the third. Not to be outdone, Cicio responded with close in saves of his own. Shooting percentages strengthened significantly in the quarter and the goalies met the challenge (Jupiter hit the net with 9 out of 11 shots and Benjamin hit with 6 out of 7). Benjamin broke through on another EMO opportunity (Jupiter was whistled for 10 penalties to 3 for Benjamin) at the 7:05 mark on Andrew Packer’s wing shot off a feed from up top by Nicklaus. 46 seconds later Jacobs scored his third from Johnston. A scramble in front of Scheele led to the loose ball feed to Jacobs on the crease. If you added up all of Jacob’s goals they probably averaged 6 feet from the goal. Jupiter was very successful shutting him down in the first game from getting crease looks but the Bucs coaching staff was able to design better looks this time.
Jupiter did not lose heart after falling down by 2 for the first time and countered about a minute and a half later on Foertmeyer’s second on a lengthy cross-cage feed from James Holdt, beating Cicio on a high-to-high angled shot. Jupiter went up a man and capitalized on the EMO to tie the game at 5-5 going into the fourth on Ben Yetman’s step down laser from Peter Cox’s right wing feed. The teams finished with 15 shots on goal in the third and the goalies combined for 11 saves.
Once again Benjamin scored the first goal of the quarter, on Johnston’s unassisted tally off a dodge towards the middle of the field, bouncing it past Scheele with 8:52 remaining. Jupiter responded again on Holdt’s spin dodge at the 6:26 mark, setting up the late Benjamin fireworks.
An unnecessary incident occurred at the end of the game. I went to the ESPN760.com video and watched it a number of times and have the following thoughts:
Go back to the video, use the full screen and take your eyes off the two players and find the scoreboard in the background. You will see that it already is ticking beyond 1 second left before it disappears from view (use slo-motion if you can). The hit then occurs right at the end of the game. Whether it happens with a tenth of a second left or a tenth of a second after the game is not really relevant.
Neither player did the right thing here. The Jupiter player should have pulled up and the Benjamin player shouldn’t have show-boated. Win with class, lose with class. Thankfully, the Jupiter player did seem to let up some (he took his second hand off the stick before impact so it was body to body) and the Benjamin player was not hurt. I remember vividly, as a long-time NY Islander fan, a similar situation in 1993 after the Isles had clinched a playoff series against Washington when Dale Hunter made a similar unnecessary hit after Pierre Turgeon scored. Turgeon missed the next series because he separated his shoulder. This discussion would be even worse if the Benjamin player had been injured. It’s easy to say ‘play to the final whistle’ but that saying is not pertinent to this situation and should not be used as a defense. A 2 goal lead with no time left is game over, not game on. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed. Let’s just leave it at that, with two kids hopefully learning a life lesson.
This game was a story of two sections, the first 44 minutes of the game and the last 4. The teams split 12 goals in the first 44, in spite of what could be called comically bad refereeing. I do not say this lightly.
In an example of life imitating art, I was reminded of the climactic court scene in the movie Philadelphia. The jury foreman is giving his opinion on the law firm’s claims that they had assigned their biggest client’s case as a way to test the Tom Hank’s character’s capabilities. The foreman, a former commander in the Air Force, commented that if he was testing his hot new $300 million fighter craft would he place the test in the hands of his new recruit, or would he send up his ace, his best, his Top Gun? This game has a similar story line.
I placed a phone call to the FHSAA and specifically asked about how they go about picking officiating crews for playoff games. Sources told me that IF the schools are not located near each other they would assign a neutral crew from as nearby as they could, while IF the schools were part of the same area/association then local crews could be assigned. FHSAA admitted to me that this crew from the Melbourne-area (Brevard County) was assigned as a TEST to see how they would handle the assignment! Sorry, but assigning an inexperienced crew to your MARQUEE first round match-up of TWO TOP 5 teams in a round-of-32 game was a BAD DECISION.
And by the way, the crew flunked the test pretty badly.
Having said all that let’s not take anything away from Benjamin’s win. The game was tied with 4 minutes left and the better team won the last four minutes tonight. These teams are really close; if they played 10 times each would probably win 5. But they only played one tonight and Benjamin is going on to face Vero Friday at home. Coach Riordan indicated to me after the game that they had a lot of preparing to do and noted that Vero had also beat Jupiter. That will be a very interesting match-up too. What is to be determined is whether this win took a lot out of Benjamin or will they ride the momentum onward.
For Jupiter, they can take solace in a great regular season, highlighted by their road win over Lake Highland. The future looks very bright for both of these programs as the sport continues its’ growth. Thanks to both Coach Riordan and Coach Loftus for spending time with me after the game.
Final Statistics for the game:
Face-offs: Jupiter 7 – Benjamin 11
Shots: Jupiter 35 – Benjamin 34
SOGs: Jupiter 19 – Benjamin 22 (at the margin this might have been the difference maker)
Turnovers: 15 each
Penalties: Jupiter 10 – Benjamin 3 (I would say the unsportsmanlike late in the first was particularly egregious. Refs, sometimes you just HAVE TO WALK AWAY from the sidelines; this was not the game to use poor judgment)
Individual Statistics:
Jacobs led Benjamin with 5G, Johnston with 1G/3A, Nicklaus with 1G/2A, O’Connor and Packer added goals, with Sylvester adding his assist.
Foertmeyer led Jupiter with 2G, with Holdt, Coughlin, Yetman and Crotty adding goals too. Holdt and Cox added assists.
As for the biggest statistic of the night:
Nearly ONE THOUSAND FANS. Pretty soon we will be outdrawing the Marlins . . .