Dr. Tact wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2019 3:16 pm
VALaxer wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2019 1:11 pm
Yorktown visiting West Springfield tonight should be a good early season measuring stick for where both teams are at and looks to be one of the better games on the VA Public GLAX slate this week.
Yorktown should win this by 3-5.
Excellent call Dr. Tact.
Took the trip over to Rolling Road tonight to watch the battle of unbeatens as West Springfield hosted Yorktown in the Spartans' regular season home opener. Unfortunately, with the construction at WS, it was not the home opener for the snack bar, as some warm Chik-Fil-A would've helped on a night that got progressively colder.
The Pats jumped out to a 2-0 lead early on, and then took advantage of a questionable yellow card to tack on another one to make it 3-0. (It wasn't the difference in this game, but let's just say the officials looked to still be in pre-season form at times throughout the night
).
One thing that was evident is that Yorktown had an overall team speed advantage, but the Spartans seemed to have a plan to slow the game down and neutralize that as much as possible. It worked, as the teams then traded goals to make it 4-1, before Spartans got it to 5-3 late in the half with the momentum and the ball on attack, but the Yorktown defense was solid all night, and they took advantage of a turnover and their speed to score on the break late in the half to make it 6-3 at intermission.
The Pats struck quickly early in the 2nd session with three goals out of the gate, to open up a 9-3 lead, but the Spartans then found some footing on the attack and got 4 out of the next 6, to make it 11-7, before Yorktown decide to slow the pace themselves as the two teams traded late goals to get the final to 12-8.
Game was probably even more competitive than the final score, as each team seized momentum at times. Yorktown looks like they could be as good as we think they could be (Top 5), Coach Tran has them coached up well (they did not make many mistakes tonight) and their ability to win draws and then use their team speed in the midfield (both on attack and on the ride) and in their cuts to goal gave WS problems. Their defense was stout, as their speed took away the fast break and forced the Spartans to run a settled offense. They only had 5 dressed for the bench, so as someone mentioned earlier, depth may be a issue, especially with a team that can get into a track meet with them.
West Springfield is definitely up and coming, as Coach P had 4 freshmen logging heavy minutes, and they rewarded him with 5 of the 8 WS tallies coming from them, including 4 from #23 (including a beautiful free position from the 20-yard line, where she caught everyone napping and threw it in from long distance
) Their defense seemed to pick up in intensity throughout the game and kept the Pats within striking distance most of the evening. The Spartans may not yet be challenging the Top 5 like Yorktown, but they didn't look out of place as a Top 10 team.
