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#4 Ponte Vedra Takes Control Early to Defeat #7 Melbourne Central Catholic 15-4

Written by Lee Roggenburg on . Posted in .
  In the movie Friday Night Lights, Billy Bob Thornton’s constant message to his kids was to ‘be perfect’.  Tom West’s kids listened very closely because they pretty much played to it last night.  The score was a LITTLE misleading, but not too much.  Not because MCC didn’t belong on this stage but because PV not only did everything right but on pretty much any 50/50 thing all night they made the play.  MCC has talent, a lot of it.  But last night they were given a lesson that the last 10% step is a lot harder than you think. MCC’s comfort zone all year was aggressive offense, get out and run, score a lot.  Play tough defense and get it on. PV decided to take all that away.  Lengthy offensive possessions.  Make the midfield play more defense.  Lull MCC to sleep.  Then strike like a cobra. On defense, press out and not give the midfield room to run downhill.  Slide on the attack from the goal line.  Crowd the middle. On faceoffs, contest the wing.  Take away the quick pop forward. Check, check and check . . . And as the game went on MCC’s frustrations grew.  They still fought hard.  But this was like big brother saying to the little brother, not yet . . .   PV Defense 2014   MCC’s squad is fairly small.  The midfield pretty much does not come off the field.  Amazingly they managed to keep running, but the emotional toll took effect as you could tell they just couldn’t find the magic that had worked so far this year.  Same with the attack.  And as the game went on it showed itself most in the shooting.  Only 25 attempts, thanks to PV’s strategy, only 11 shots on goal, thanks to MCC’s frustration.  13 turnovers to go with the 11 shots on goal.  Normally 13 turnovers are a good number but because of the time of possession that PV attained it was more than they could afford. You could also see it in the faceoffs.  MCC’s Dylan Lowdermilk is a terrific faceoff man (not a FOGO, he stayed out there ALL GAME LONG  Maybe he could blog his diet and exercise regimen to me?).  He won a lot of draws cleanly.  Unfortunately some of them were so good they went out of bounds, or the wings didn’t scoop them up.  Just another facet of the game that didn’t go their way. MCC was coming off a solid road trip to the Orlando area, with solid wins over Oviedo and Winter Park, and handled both Martin County and Wellington convincingly this season.  Ponte Vedra was coming off a one-goal road loss to Jupiter. A bigger difference than I thought.   mcc alex ponce 414   Ponte Vedra is for real this season.  They played with a maturity last night that not a lot of high schools in Florida can do.  A well thought out game plan, executed flawlessly. And when the ground balls were contested, they picked up almost all of them.  Only 8 turnovers all game with a LOT of possession. Be perfect. Even Boobie Miles would have been impressed. A few other thoughts. MCC is a pretty small school.  It’s really too bad more of the students didn’t come out for the game.  It was very quiet in the stands.  Students, if you read this . . . your team deserves more support, please give it to them. As for the food . . . wow!  A toss-up with St. Thomas for best food. The field is top notch, great to play on.  A very pleasant atmosphere. One more time . . . students, come out and support this team; they deserve it. MCC took the lead at the 9:23 mark of the first as Zach Fleis took Garrett Arnold’s left goal line extended feed in front and while spinning right got off a low right-hand shot to beat PV goalie Colin Peaks to open the scoring.  PV came right back at 8:05 as RJ Garcia dodged from the left wing to the middle of the field and fired a left-side bounce shot past MCC goalie Chris Cacciatore to tie it up.  23 seconds later miles Sylva took Evan Weiner’s up top pass on the left wing and bounced one home too for 2-1.  At 5:18 PV stretched it to 3-1 as Silva took Cody Legeza’s fast break pass on the left side and shot between the legs.  At 3:18 MCC got back within one on Fleis’ second.  Alex Ponce cleared by himself, sped down the middle and found Fleis on left wing; Fleis high to the short side and it was 3-2.  But then PV went on a 5-goal run over the next 15 minutes to take complete control of the game.   MCC Lowdermilk Brothers 414   With 1:57 left in the first Silva scored his third from Garcia’s middle dodge and Garcia found him all alone on the right crease to make it 4-1.  With only 14 seconds left in the period Jason Randolph scored unassisted on a left-hand shot from the right wing into the upper right corner and the period ended 5-2.  At 8:24 in the second Legeza took a Garrett Boyle feed from behind the net on the right wing and shot between the legs for 6-2.  The teams then traded some possessions until the final few minutes of the period.  But then PV scored twice in 16 seconds to make it 8-2.  Ryan Wiele produced a spin off left goal line extended to the low left wing and went low at 2:24, then Legeza again took a Boyle feed, from left GLE on the left wing and went high, near side at 2:08.  MCC’s Quinn Lowdermilk got one back with a gritty solo effort, dodging and re-dodging the middle, getting inside and placing it low to the left side, but PV responded to end the half with 33 seconds left as Garcia and Legeza teamed up for about the 287th time in their careers together, as Garcia was able to step down up top from a left wing pass and the shot found the net between Cacciatore’s legs and the half ended 9-3.
Colin Peaks
The second half started quietly as PV help possession and when they did shoot missed the net a lot in the third, as they only hit net 5 times on 17 shots.  But the possession time took its toll as MCC only hit the net 4 times in the entire second half.  At 3:46 the lead went to 7 as Silva finished his night, taking Logan Tauscher’s right wing feed in the middle and went low, far side for 10-3.  MCC’s Dylan Lowdermilk got that one back 41 seconds later unassisted as he worked hard to get across the field from left to right, bouncing it in with the right hand.  But just 24 seconds later PV prevented a momentum shift (Coach West pointed out to me how important the Hagerty game was that week in making his team aware of mentally letting up) with Tauscher scoring unassisted on a left wing alley dodge, firing left-handed, low to the far side.  Then with 12 seconds left in the 3rd Boyle scored his first on a dunk shot from right in front after taking Randolph’s behind the net feed. PV scored three times in the fourth to make it 15-4.  At 11:15 Boyle from Wiele, at 10:13 Garcia unassisted and with 1:23 left Wiele unassisted.  Pretty much how you would think one like this would end up. Sometimes big brother just wants to toughen the little brother up.  Sometimes that comes back to bite you another day.  We’ll see in the future. After the game Coach West invited Coach Mercaldo to continue the series next year up north.  Let’s hope so. Also after the game we got another reminder of the sacrifices high school lacrosse coaches make to coach this game.  MCC Coach Pete Mercaldo, after patiently talking to me and consoling and teaching his kids, had to go to work. On the overnight shift. As a police officer. I gave him my license plate number, just in case . . . I hope it was a quiet night for him.  And that his kids don’t feel too down tomorrow.  And that one day they also experience what it is like to ‘be perfect’ for a game.  
Ponte Vedra's Jason Randolph
Ponte Vedra’s Jason Randolph
    Team Statistics Faceoffs;  PV 12 – MCC 11 (if we eliminate the ground ball it was about 17-6 MCC) Shots:  PV 43 – MCC 25 Shots on Goal:  PV 25 – MCC 11 Turnovers:  MCC 13 – PV 8 Penalties:  2 each   Individual Statistics   PV Miles Silva  4G RJ Garcia  3G/1A Cody Legeza and Garrett Boyle – 2G/2A each Ryan Wiele  2G/1A Jason Randolph and Logan Tauscher  1G/1A each Even Weiner  1A   MCC Zach Fleis  2G Quinn and Dylan Lowdermilk  1G each Garrett Arnold and Alex Ponce  1A each   Goalies Chris Cacciatore of MCC with 10 saves and PV’s Colin Peaks with 7 saves   Thanks to Coaches West and Mercaldo and their staffs for spending the time with me before and after the game.  After the game Coach West confided to me that he was actually a RANGER fan; that changes everything . . . just kidding Tom.  And Coach Mercaldo also hails from Ranger territory . . . well, at least the food was really good. MCC returns to action on Friday, traveling to Viera while Ponte Vedra host resurgent Bishop Moore on Friday.  Good luck to both teams the rest of the season!  

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