Red Devils Wrap Up Wildcat Tourney With 4 Straight Wins

FRIDAY
After sleeping in, the Red Devils took on Olympia at 1PM. Senior Captain Jack Meara led the scoring with 6 goals as the Red Devils got off to a hot 5-0 start. Junior goalie Chris Lauber saved 9 shots en route to a 13-7 victory. Senior Captain Chris Watkins ended up with 1 goal, 2 assists and 1 steal, and was named player of the game for doing all of the little things right; driving hard, winging out for the outlet pass, going into set and holding his water, swimming end-to-end.

At 5PM, the "White" team took on Winter Park's JV team, which had two varsity players starting for them. This game proved to be the closest game of the tournament for CCP as Winter Park never let the Red Devils run away with the game by responding with big goals to keep the game close. But, three third period goals, two by Junior Kevin Glauber proved to be too much to overcome for the Wildcats. Senior Peter Hoette stopped 5 shots, and had 3 assists, earning player of the game as "White" took home a 9-6 victory.

At 6PM, the "Red" team played Boone, an Orlando area team. "Red" worked hard the whole game and never gave Boone anything easy. 9 second quarter goals, 6 from Senior Jack Meara, put this game out of reach early. Senior Jake Entwistle had 10 steals and chipped in a 4th quarter goal to earn player of the game honors. Junior Chris Lauber stopped 4 shots as "Red" wins 17-2.

SATURDAY
Growing in confidence each game, the Red Devils kept the heat on the local teams by bringing the intensity right from the initial swim-off. Local Orlando team Bishop Moore was up next at 10AM and fought hard with the Red Devils for the first quarter and a half. The Red Devil defense was intense and led to a flurry of counter-attack goals, 5 in the 2nd quarter and 7 in the 3rd quarter. Jack Meara and Junior Ed Rose each had four goals and accounted for 6 of those 7 3rd quarter goals. Jack also chipped in 4 assists. Junior Chris Lauber played his best game of the year, stopping 8 shots and having his best passing game of the year, leading to one assist. Chris earned player of the game as the Red Devils beat Bishop Moore 17-3.

The final game of the tournament was at 12pm against Palm Beach County school Suncoast. The intensity the Red Devils displayed in the previous three games did not diminish against Suncoast as the Red Devils imposed their defensive will upon the unsuspecting Suncoast players. Another game was out of reach early as Chaminade ended the first quarter up 7-0. The scoring was spread wide as all but three of the 13 players notched a goal, including Junior Chris Lauber who scored his first two goals after being relieved by Senior Peter Hoette. Sweeping the Saturday "player of the game" awards was Chris Lauber, who had 2 saves and an assist in the first half, and notched 2 goals on 2 shots in the second half, one of which came on a 5M shot.

Overall, the tournament was well played by Chaminade as we seemed to be growing in confidence with each game. The comfort level with the system is as good as it's ever been and the intensity on both ends of the pool is light years ahead of where it was against Kirkwood and SLUH. Every player agrees that it was definitely worth the trip. Coach Creighton apologized that he couldn't get some more top-level teams to come play us, but most of Florida was on Spring Break this week as well. I was pleased with the competition, and I wish we could have another shot at Winter Park (or played them last), because we've grown in the last two days. Player of the tournament goes to Chris Watkins, who did everything and more. His passing was great, especially on 6-on-5, his driving was relentless, his hole setting was physical and aggressive. He played tough defense and had a lot of steals. An all-around great performance, one you would expect from a captain. Jack Meara deserves some mention in the POTT conversation as he led the team with 22 goals, and did nearly everything I mentioned Chris doing. The difference was Chris' 13 assists.

Up Next: Monday March 30th v. Parkway South at Parkway South. JV starts at 4PM and Varsity follows at 5PM.

Winter Park 19 - Chaminade 9

Winter Park head coach Barry Creighton on his thoughts about the way Chaminade played (paraphrased from my memory): "First of all, that's one of the toughest games we'll play this year. You guys play hard the whole game. Your best ability is driving and getting open in the half-court. Your six-on-five was really good too. It just came down to turnovers. You would run a great counter-attack, get the ball down to the wing and the wing would rush the pass and turn the ball over. Part of it was that our guys are really good at pressuring and staying in the passing lanes. But, if the wing can just hold on to the ball and be patient, you are very good at getting open drives in the middle. You half-court defense was really tough to score against, you have the ability to stop people. But in the end, it came down to your turnovers."

My thoughts exactly. Just like against SLUH, we failed to take care of the ball. The lack of patience and lack of pride in passing is getting very frustrating. The boys really need to be aggressive when they are in possession of the ball, protecting their water with their shoulders and getting their shoulders out to pass. To para-phrase Coach Creighton; if it's the right pass to make, then you should make the effort to get your body out of the water to make the pass. I would guess that 14 of their 19 goals came on counter-attacks, either off of steals or missed shots. 4 came on man-advantages and 1 came from set offense. If the Red Devils can make the choice to be patient with the ball, make the proper pass, get their shoulders out and use the whole shot clock, the SLUH and Winter Park games become winnable.

Still, we played a very strong offensive game against a tough defensive team. Seniors Jack Meara, Chris Watkins and Junior Ed Rose had their best games of the year, driving hard to the goal and getting goals out of the hole set. Senior Jake Entwistle chipped in two goals as well. Our six-on-five was very effective, sparked by great passing from Watkins. Senior Peter Hoette jumped into goal in the third quarter and helped his teammates out with great passing and even a few steals. Junior Kevin Glauber netted his first varisty goal, on his birthday no less! Happy Birthday Kevin! Player of the game honers go to Jack Meara who had 4 of the 9 goals, including 2 from the hole, with a man on his side.

It was a good game and it was fun to go against the guys we had been practicing with the last couple of days. Coach Creighton and his boys were great hosts and we hope we can return the favor to them in the future. We look forward to trying to make this trip happen again next year. We need to bring them some Chaminade gear next year!

Tomorrow we have 3 games. The first will be against Olympia, in which the full team will play. The second game, the "White" team will play Winter Park's JV. In the third game, the "Red" team plays Boone.