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May 29, 2010

Boys Division I – Washington State Lacrosse Championships

Deal’s OT winner gives Bellevue first boys lacrosse title in 19 years
SEATTLE – Senior Ryan Deal scored with 1:50 remaining in overtime to give Bellevue its first state lacrosse title in 19 years in an 8 – 7 win over Mercer Island, Saturday before 2,650 in attendance at Seattle’s Memorial Stadium. With the win, Bellevue handed the Islanders their first loss in 22 starts this season and their first victory over the Islanders since 2002.

Deal’s game winner came on a hitch that pulled Islander defender Trevor Reed off the play. “I ran a hitch and it made him fall for it,” said Deal after his first game-winning goal of the season. “It feels amazing, but we’re a family and without a 100 percent effort from the rest of the team, this was nothing.”

The sudden death period was set up as Wolverine’s midfielder Eric Omri beat Islanders goaltender Hap Giraud with 26 seconds remaining in regulation to knot the game at 7 and send the Boys Division I final into a 4-minute sudden-death overtime.

Omri’s goal 4 minutes earlier began Bellevue’s improbable run from a 2-goal deficit to snatch the state title.”I hit one and got and just kept shooting,” said Omri who had 3 goals and a ground ball in the game. “It was scary down two (goals). We’ve been there before and we knew we could run with them.”

As overtime began, Bellevue coach John Baumann signaled for an illegal string in the netting of the Islander Connor Beckwith’s stick giving the senior defender a 1-minute penalty. Despite the man advantage, the Wolverines were unable to score, but the penalty helped set the tone in the overtime period. “I thought (Beckwith’s webbing) was deep in the third quarter, but I new I couldn’t use it then,” said Baumann.

The Islanders struck first as Doug Mahony beat Wolverine goaltender Austin Boyd to give MI the 1 – 0 advantage. Deal and Omri responded with a goal apiece to to give the Wolverines an early 3 – 1 lead. Jonathan Wettack added another goal for MI two minutes later to briefly knot the game at 2 until Cole Nordstrom put Bellevue up by one with a shot at 1:45 remaining in the first.

In the second, Bellevue’s Brett Mennella struck first giving Bellevue a 4 – 2 lead, but the Islanders battled back with goals by Connor Bernal and Wettack to knot the game at 4 going into the intermission.

The Islanders outscored Bellevue 2 -0 in the third behind goals by Colton Knebel, before Bellevue’s Brett Mennella scored on a man-advantage situation in the fourth for the first of the Wolverines 3 goals to set up sudden death.

About High School Lacrosse in Washington State
Lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in the U.S. and in Washington State the sport has seen double-digit growth in six of the last eight years. In 2010, over 2,700 high school students representing 83 boys (www.WHSBLA.org) and 55 girls (www.WSLAX.org) varsity and jv teams in eastern and western Washington compete in a nine-week season March – May. The annual Boys and Girls Washington State High School Championships take place in late May.

For daily high school lacrosse results or to receive results through an RSS feed, please visit http://media.uslax-wa.org/

BOYS DIVISION I SCORING
Bellevue 3 1 0 3 1 – 8
Mercer Island 2 2 2 1 0 — 7

SCORING HIGHLIGHTS: Bellevue 8, Mercer Island 7 (OT) (Bellevue wins Division I state championship) (Eric Omri, B, 3 goals, 1 ground ball; Brett Mennella, B, 2 goals, 1 assist, 2 ground balls; Ryan Deal, B, 2 goals, 1 assist, 3 ground balls; Cole Nordstrom, B, 1 goal, 1 assist, 5 ground balls; Andrew Gulrajani, B, 1 ground ball; Alex Mennella, B, 5 ground balls; Dan Ellis, B, 1 ground balls; James Seely, B, 1 ground balls; Sam Leggett, B, 1 ground ball; John Drayton, B, 1 ground balls; Clayton Federspeil, B, 1 ground ball; Austin Boyd, B, 9 saves; John Wettack, MI, 2 goals, 5 ground balls; Colton Knebel, MI, 2 goals; Connor Bernal, MI, 1 goal, 1 ground balls; Matt Shields, MI, 1 goal, 1 ground ball; Doug Mahony, MI, 1 goal, 1 ground ball; T. Claes Johnson, MI, 1 assist; Spencer Tierney, MI, 7 ground balls; Teddy Trimble, MI, 1 ground balls; Steven Taylor, MI, 2 ground balls; TJ Blackburn, MI, 1 ground ball; Connor Beckwith, MI, 3 ground balls; Trevor Reed, MI, 2 ground balls; Ryan Blumenstein, MI, 1 ground ball; Connor Rafety, MI, 1 ground ball; Hap Giraud, MI, 8 saves)

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May 29, 2010

Boys Division II – Washington State Lacrosse Championships

Lynnwood downs San Juan for first state lacrosse title
SEATTLE — Alex Tindall scored 5 goals and Trey Knowles and Nick Peters each scored 4 to lead Lynnwood to its first Boys Division II Washington state lacrosse championship in a 16 – 7 win over San Juan, Saturday before 2,650 at Seattle’s Memorial Stadium. The championship was the first in two tries for Lynnwood.

“Our plan going into the game was shoot, shoot, shoot. It didn’t matter whether the shots hit or not,” said Tindall, whose team fired 44 shots at the San Juan cage to unsettle the Skagit Conference champions. “We’ve worked hard all season for this,” he said. “It was a great team effort.”

A key contributor for Lynnwood was junior attackman Cameron Girgus who seemed to make the right passes all night. “Assists are how I do it. They’re more important than goals, said Girgus, who delivered 7 assists along with a goal and 7 ground balls. “I like to turn heads – make the defense ball-watch. Make connections.”

On defense, the Tigers held San Juan’s Ryan Guard, who averaged just over 4 goals a game as the league’s third leading goal scorer, to 1 goal and 3 assists. “A lot of this is team defense,” said Girgus. “We stepped up all week and worked on our defensive play.”

The state lacrosse championship appearance was the first for San Juan and only the third time in history that a high school team from the Friday Harbor community had advanced to a state title game in any sport. “I’m proud of my boys win or lose,” said San Juan coach Rob Cuomo. “This is an important accomplishment.”

Riding on the emotion that drove San Juan all season, the Dragons jumped out to an early 3 -1 lead. But after exchanging goals, Lynnwood’s Sam Girgus put a shot past Dragons goalkeeper Calen Mehrer for the first of 6 unanswered goals through the end of the second quarter as the Tigers took an 8 – 4 lead into the intermission.

“Lynnwood displayed great stick skills. They work well together,” said Cuomo. “Calen (Mehrer) just couldn’t face that many point blank shots,” he said. “Lynnwood played a really good lacrosse game and earned the state championship.”

At 11:53 of the third, Ausilo netted his third of the night for San Juan to narrow the gap to 3 goals, but that was as close as the Dragons would come as Lynnwood scored the next 8 of 9 goals to pull out to a 16 – 6 lead at the end of three.

San Juan’s Kyle Skoog netted the only goal in the fourth, his second of the night, to round out the scoring.

San Juan goalkeeper Calen Mehrer had just 3 saves in goal, as the Dragons closed out their season with a 14-3-0 record.

In other state championship action Saturday, senior Ryan Deal scored with 1:50 remaining in overtime to give Bellevue its first state lacrosse title in 19 years in an 8 – 7 win over Mercer Island at Seattle’s Memorial Stadium. With the win, Bellevue handed the Islanders their first loss in 22 starts this season their first victory over the Islanders since 2002.

BOYS DIVISION II SCORING
Lynnwood 5 3 8 0 — 16
San Juan 4 0 2 1 — 7

SCORING HIGHLIGHTS: Lynnwood 16, San Juan 7 (Lynnwood wins Division II state championship) (Alex Tindall, L, 5 goals, 1 assist, 7 ground balls; Trey Knowles, L, 4 goals, 1 assist, 5 ground balls; Nick Peters, L, 4 goals; Sam Girgus, L, 2 goals; Cameron Girgus, L, 1 goal, 7 assists, 7 ground balls; Devan Hardwick, L, 1 assist, 3 ground balls; John Williams, L, 1 assist, 8 ground balls; Justin Girgus, L, 2 ground balls; David Dekoekkoek, L, 4 saves; Michael Ausilo, SJ, 3 goals, 7 ground balls; Ryan Guard, SJ, 1 goal, 3 assists, 1 ground ball; Alex Michael, SJ, 1 goal, 3 ground balls; Kyle Skoog, SJ, 2 goals, 1 ground balls; Forest Dayton, SJ, 1 assist, 5 ground balls; Bradly Sundberg, SJ, 1 ground ball; Weston Hedin, SJ, 2 ground balls; Calen Mehrer, SJ, 3 saves)

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