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| July 21, 2004
By Irish #19
Day Five: High School Crowns a Champion
|  Missouri’s Parkway South Patriots Prevail – Bantam Gold Shakes it Up and Out Towards Finals And Squirt and Pee Wee Gold Begin to Roll and Platinum Starts.
As you can see, if you are following the game scores on the Internet, at the time of this writing we have just finished up our 362nd game, and if you have ever tried to watch 362 games…well. Feel free to email me at markellis56@yahoo.com with any stories, interesting tid-bits or even game summaries I may have missed. I would be happy to consider enclosing your summaries in my reports from Cincinnati.
Bantam Gold:
Bantam Gold Play offs:
Water City 5, St Louis 4
Labeda Militia 4, ww.Rod 3 (OT)
Jr. Gladiators 6, Stallions 1
Quarterfinals:
The world turned upside down today when the 1st through 4th Seeds fell.
AMB Yellow 1 v. Water City Serpents 2
CCM Devil Dogs 2 v. Jr. Gladiators 7
(I should comment, however, that the Gladitors had one game that was, well, lets just say did not show the true strength of their team. They were clearly a top four team.)
TMD 88 D2s 3 v. ww.Rod 4
Disrict 5 1 v. Grizzlies 2
So, this division is wide open and is now hard to predict. But I saw every game tonight and after watching them all, I think that if the Junior Gladiators play like they played tonight, they have the inside track to take it all. Its Get Real time, boyos, don’t make me look stupider than I already do…
Junior Platinum:
Junior Platinum started today, and there were very few earthquakes.
Team Tour overpowered Dry Ice, winning 7-2. One of the favorites move on.
Mission Factory did a sleep walk with a mercy over Truck. Ty did not break a sweat. By the way, it is my understanding that none of the Habs fans came to NARCh because they are in therapy. That’s what I heard. I cannot confirm it.
Mission S-N-I-P-E-R-S (that was me yelling that out Tim, I just wanted your boys to feel at home…) staved off an early attack by Team Harrow, to put it away convincingly in the second period, winning 5-2. Snipers looked shaky at first, only to settle and play well later on. Snipers remain a favorite.
Buffalo Wings beat the Ratttlers in a game that saw the rattlers never quite get anything going and the Wings obviously up to play the defending Champions. Wings 4, Rattlers 0.
K-Tek went 6-2 over the Hurricanes, and the Detroit Mission Stars went 9-1 over Primal Scream. But Primal did have some really cool t-shirts.
The Surprise of the Day came when York Mission Triumph – who I said to watch out for and some ignoramouses said “ha ha” – well, they defeated Pa Ma easily 5-3, and I think 1 or 2 of Pa Ma goals were gimmes at the end of the game. Those out of the know did not know that there were some key players added and Triumph is sporting a new goalie… And, on a personal note, it was good to see young Hammond play again. This is a Southern California player who has been playing ice in Canada for a couple of years, and is one of those original Jim Thompson boys from the old EPH days. He skates as well as he did when he played on the Anaheim Bulldogs.
The Game of the Day, however, was the Mudcats v. the Bordercats. How these two powerhouses and potential finalists ended up playing each other so early is literally beyond me. In a packed arena of those in the know, saw a classic. The Bordercats drew a semi-penalty with 11 seconds in that left the audience somewhat surprised, and the Bordercats had a ppg before a sweat was broken. That seemed to shake the normally stoic Mudcats somewhat as they then dropped behind 3-0 before taking a deep cleansing breath… And the California lads and Sealweenies numero uno ranked team chipped back to tie.
This game really was the Bordercats for the first half of the first and the Mudcats the rest of the way, but where both goalies became near brick walls in the last minutes of play. The save of the Save of the Day was turned in by Troy Redman of the Mudcats when he batted away a bouncing puck after a series of impossible saves. Those staying up late to watch were given a preview of a possible final match up in the very first few hours of the Division springing to life.
High School:
Parkway South moved past in the Semi final and beat Oakville, 3-1, in the final to take the Gold Medal. The game was nip and tuck but the difference today was the stellar play by the Parkway Goalie, Menzel, who shut down the Oakville attack and kept his team in a position to score. I hope to get more about the final for my next installment.
I was a little surprised at the result here, I must admit. Probably my prejudice because several players on Oakville are with the Tour program I manage. But Menzel is a solid goalie and one of the best in the 88 year. So, it didn’t knock me over to any degree.
Earlier, my old team, the Marina Vikings played the Missouri State Champs Oakville, in a game that was a see saw battle. Many saw this as a minnie final with the two very strong teams playing in a semi due to the luck of the draw when the small division ended up with several ties. Parkway South, who had lost to Marina in preliminaries, ended up second seed while Marina who had beat them ended up fourth seed. It was a tough but clean game, that had each team tie each other in the contest. At the end, however, Oakville would prevail and eventually go on to get a silver medal.
Marina still can’t buy a break in semis at NARCh. Up a goal with two minutes of play, Marina had executed their game well and was able to contain young Patrick Maroon of Oakville, with a collapsing double team when the young Oakville star had the puck. Marina was also able to convert their long shots as well and getting good movement in front of the net. However, late penalties resulted in a ppg that tied the game and multiple 3 on 3 play Marina was unable to execute the double team on the physically larger Oakville team – play that had put them in the lead. Marina lost the advantage they had in 4 on 4 play throughout the game and Oakville had the advantage 3 on 3 all the way to the tying and winning goal and on to the Championship game. Marina was the only team to beat the eventual Champions, but the only consolation a medal-less Marina would take home is the fact they had beaten the eventual champion… Still love you boyos…
Parkway South – Gold
Oakville – Silver
Temecula – Bronze
Tomorrow:
Junior Platinum continues.
Bantam Gold is at the finish line.
Squirt and Pee Wee head towards the finish line.
To read Irish #19's previous articles on NARCh 2004 see the Latest News section.
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