Lacrosse report Div 3, Camberwell vs Bendigo 18/5/19 at Maiden Gully
The Autumn sunny days keep coming and last Saturday, Bendigo hosted Camberwell at Maiden Gully in beautiful weather and ground conditions for lacrosse. The Warhawks were missing a couple of key players, including centre man, Brett Ruiz, as well as midfield utilities, Mason Matheson and Dylan Le Clercq. However, numbers were bolstered to 13 as we welcomed Craig “Junior” Pereira into the side. Camberwell arrived with 15 players and the game began as shadows lengthened.
The pace of the game was fast from the beginning and Bendigo had the better of possession early. The Warhawks jumped Camberwell and scored six goals in the first term with some great team play. The addition of a new experienced player in “Junior” Pereira energised the forward line and other players lifted around him as he put in two goals (one was a ripper blind shot, with his back to goal) while Ian Lock also slotted two (one of which was a classic trademark low-angle effort, assisted by John Webb). Alex Orr also put one in and John Webb was awarded a goal that should have been a hit-in (the goalie stopped the Webb shot, but spilled the ball into the goal as he went to clear).
Lone-handed centre, Russell Crofts found the going tough at the face-off for much of the day, with the Camberwell centre man frequently able to stroll off towards the goal with ball in stick after a clear win. However, just as frequently, the latter habitually ran straight into defending middies and a defender and lost possession, rather than pass off the ball and set up an attack.
In addition, the young Camberwell forwards were held a long way out by the imposing Warhawk backline and long shots were seen well and early by goalie Gino Iuliano and Camberwell were only able to score twice, with the score being 6-2 at the first change.
The second term was a little closer as Camberwell settled somewhat and were able to score twice more, while Bendigo kept up pressure and steadily added to their score, with a goal from Mark Reader and a couple more from Junior to make the scoreline 9-4 at the long break.
In the third, Camberwell were held scoreless as the Warhawks pumped in three more goals each from Mark Reader, Ian Lock and Junior Pereira and in the final term, Alex and Ian both scored again while Russ Croft had some reward for a hard centre slog, with a clean pick-up of a loose ball in front of goal that was buried sweetly in the top-corner. To round out the day, Christian Iuliano nimbly sidestepped a defender and sent home the fourth for the term and last goal of the day. Camberwell added two in the fourth, with the final score being 16 to 6.
When we score lots of goals, the descriptions for multiple scorers’ goals become brief at best, if not just a vague “Alex scored a goal” as the failing memory of your report writer tires through repetition. Sorry lads, it’s the price you pay for a great win. And this was a great win. Bendigo had seven goal scorers and also four players with assists (Mike Bell one, Mark Reader three, Junior Pereira one and John Webb had two). On the other hand, there were only two Warhawk penalties for the game.
Votes were awarded to Mark Reader, with three Association and three club votes for a massive day at both ends of the ground and a haul of two goals and three assists. Well done! Ian Lock was given two votes for a busy day of tormenting the goalie and Alex Orr was awarded a single club vote for his usual prowess and energy. You could easily have argued giving votes to four or five others and it was certainly one of our better team games.
Thanks again to Tracey O’Meara for scoring for us and Lester Young for reffing. Thanks also to Paula and Mark Saxon for manning the kitchen. I’m going to see how I go getting to training this week, but let’s get there, whoever can, and give Melbourne Uni/Brunswick a red hot go next Saturday.
John Webb, Senior Player
For other grades is as follows:
The results for the boys were:
MCC 6 lost to Camberwell 10
With Matty Saxon and Christian Iuliano scoring 1 goal and an assist each.
It was a greatly improved game for the boys with lacrosse skills improving each quarter. They were tentative in the first quarter and not going to goal or placing pressure on the opposition defenders and goalie.
Hence, they were outscored 5 to 1 in the first quarter, but in the next three quarters both teams scored 5 goals each. As explained this team is full of first year U15 players where as other teams have a mixture of first and second years of U15’s lacrosse experience, so it was a fantastic effort and improvement.
The women’s result:
MCC 9 lost to Altona 10
The women’s team had 10 players while the opposition had 16 players.
MCC were behind on the scoreboard, 2 goals in the first and 3 goals in the second quarter, but kept Altona scoreless in the third and scored themselves 4 goals to lead 7 to 6 at the final break.
With less than 2 minutes in the last quarter MCC were 2 goals behind but got one back. There was 40 seconds left on the clock, MCC shot onto goal but their goalie saved it and Altona run out the clock.
A great game to witness and the ladies did us proud.
Abbey Saxon had three shoots on goal with 2 hitting the goal frame, while Morgan snagged 2 goals, the first time in her life. Jessica had played defence for the entire game with a couple of dashing runs to the forward third of the ground.
Cheers
Gino Iuliano
Last Modified on 22/05/2019 12:45