I am starting a Junior "B" Box Lacrosse Team (16-21) in Philadelphia. We will compete in a National Tournament in Nedrow, NY (Onondaga Nation), plus several other games home and away. Anyone interested in participating should shoot me an email with your info. There will be more to come! Yours in Lacrosse Bill
PBLA's 2008 Prague trip report, 3rd of a series; Friday round robin games. After getting together for a meal and a few fine Czech beers the guys talked about what went wrong against Bratislava. Most players agreed that looking past the opponent was a big part of the failure to close out the heavy underdog. Poor wing play was also noted so the team decided to use Bob Stewart more on the face offs so that they could better utilize Tim O’Connor’s athletic ability and speed for the loose balls. The game plan for Stewart would be to overpower the smaller Czech player on the face off and tie up the ball for a few seconds to negate the better overall speed of their wings. The conversation ended when the Bratislava team was seated at the next table over. It was now time for a much needed good night’s sleep. The guy’s enjoyed their complimentary breakfast before their 10:30 game vs the Tigers. The Tigers are a local team made up of mostly younger players from the late teens to early 20’s. They lost their first game to Jizni Mesto but impressed the home crowd with opportunistic scoring and energetic play. The match up would pit the younger, quicker home team with greater numbers vs the bigger, stronger, more experienced team that had traveled the greatest distance to get there. Philly was in a must win situation due to only getting 1 point out of the shootout loss. Either way they would still need this Tigers team to at least go to shoot outs with Bratislava or to outright defeat them. Goals by C.J.Greene and Tim O’Connor gave Philly the early lead again but again the opponent struck back quickly. The face off plan was working well as O’Connor was getting the loose balls as expected but a couple of good saves by the Tigers goalie coupled with some coverage break downs by Philly resulted in a tight game. The late first half and early second half clearly belonged to Philly. Their legs were coming back to them and the sticks were sharper. Excellent defense and precision offense led to a clean and controlled game. The shots however were just a little off and consequently the lead wasn’t growing as expected. Philly led 6-4 with 6 minutes left and they were starting to wear down. Most guys were pulling double duty with shifts lasting more than 5 minutes. Only Stewart and one of the young Czech players were playing dedicated defense so that left 3 offense players on the floor to play “D”. Lack of discipline and sloppiness ensued and seemed to be paired with some serious officiating impairments. The defensive Czech player was involved in a tussle with a Tiger player. A punch was thrown and the refs seem to misread the situation. What should have been coincidental minors or coincidental majors turned out to be a major for Philadelphia and minor for the Tigers. A temporary 4 v 4 ensued and Philly took another penalty. At this point the time keeper made a mistake on the penalty time for both teams. Acting Captain Stewart halted the officials from starting the game until it was resolved. The Tigers immediately scored on the 4 v 3 on a back door goal behind Loescher. The Philly minor was not released until after play resumed due to more confusion between the time keeper and the penalty box official. The Tigers then scored on the 5 v 4 tying the game up at 6. The box official did not release the Philly major despite two goals being scored. Stewart vehemently protested. The box official was Canadian Terry Clarke who clearly did not know the rule for this tournament. Stewart asked for a score sheet review to prove his point but was denied. Philly had to take the face off man down. After the penalty was released Tim O’Connor settled the offense down and scored a nice goal to put Philly up 7-6. The defense and goaltending held on for the win. The win gave 3 more points to Philly for a total of 4. A Bratislava loss to the Tigers could clinch a quarter final berth for Philly or they could clinch it themselves with a win over the powerhouse Czech team Jizni Mesto. The Tigers took care of it for Philly with a 5-2 win. The Philly squad geared up for a game against perennial tournament rival Jizni Mesto that would decide 1st place in pool “A”. The loser would have to play the winner of the “B” pool and that would likely be the Boston Megamen with their loaded team of former pros and world cup players. The game started out very tight with Jizni Mesto slowly building a small lead. The play was chippy with Philly’s defense hitting anything that moved into the middle. Tom Lafferty was handling most of the right handers while Bob Stewart was handling the leftys, a job made easier by the absence of Josef Ondracek, most notably Canadian Jim Plunkett. Late in the first half Stewart was called for cross checking Milan Cernik in the middle of the field and on the delayed penalty was called for slashing Plunkett. Referee Clarke was calling slashes as if he were doing a minor game in Canada not a men’s tournament boasting over 4 dozen world cup players. The man down would have to kill 2 minutes without Stewart who normally plays the left side crease. Jizni Mesto scored to make it 3-0 but it was after a minute had passed so the penalty was released. Philly fell back 4 goals and then finally got the offense in gear. Jizni Mesto’s goalie, Jiri Malina, tore his ACL while playing for the Czech National team at the 2007 World Cup. This was only his second game since returning and Philly hoped to capitalize on his mobility issues. Stainer, O’Connor, and Greene moved the ball across the field to get Malina moving laterally. They were able to pop in 2 goals to bring the score to 4-2. This score held up until 3 minutes left when a Jizni Mesto player tried to clear the ball by running up the left side boards while being pursued by one of Philly’s young Czech players. C.J.Greene lined him up for a nice hit and dislodged the ball with a cross check to the chest, the player went down with a yell and appeared injured. Greene was called for a major penalty of 3 minutes. The crowd watching the game was stunned at the penalty. Some of the Boston players felt that there was biased calls against the American teams; more on that later. With the team down 2 goals and down a man for the rest of the game (unless Jizni Mesto scored two goals) they needed to gamble. Jizni Mesto was happy to sit on the ball until the shot clock expired so Philly needed to press. They started off in a box but went to a triangle and one to press the ball. It worked in drawing the ball in toward the goal where the crease men pounce on the carrier, Joe Stainer headed to the other goal for a potential fast break pass but it never happened. The pressured cross field pass connected and Menschner was beaten on the back side. The same thing happened again and Greene was released. Philly went ‘all in’ with their offense but ended up giving up two more goals. Final score 8-2. Boston went on to defeat TJ Malesice by a score of 8-6 setting up an all American Quarter final at 12:10 pm on Saturday.
PBLA's 2008 Prague trip report, 2nd of a series; Arrival and the first game. The Philly team departed at various times and destinations from the US with a group of 5 meeting up in Atlanta for the final departure to Prague. Among this group were 3 players who were among the first Americans to ever play box lacrosse in the Czech Republic back in 2001; Stainer, Stewart and Menschner. The flight to Prague was delayed over two hours due to a mechanical problem and they would have to wait for a new plane. There was less than 9 hours in between the originally scheduled landing and the first game so the schedule was getting squeezed. On the flight the players met up with some players from other teams as well as some NHL players whose teams missed the playoffs. Upon arrival in Prague the guys were happy to see that their equipment made the trip as well – something that doesn’t happen all the time. The games were underway by the time the team checked in at the hotel which was affectionately dubbed Hotel Stalin Grad by Frank Menschner a few years back. It has all the personality and amenities of a WWII POW building but that is part of its charm. The team arrived at the rink for the 8pm opening ceremony and suited up for their 9:10 pm game versus the Bratislava Tricksters (SVK). Philly was heavily favored in this game but the Tricksters had played fairly well versus Jizni Mesto earlier in the day despite losing 7-1. Philly quickly went up 2-0 on a C.J. Greene goal but seemed to go flat after that. Bratislava tied the game up a few minutes later. Tim O’Connor was doing well in the face offs but the wing play was poor leaving Philly on the defense a lot. Bob Stewart dove into the crease to knock in a loose ball that broke the tie but the Slovaks persevered. They scored two of their own goals and actually led for the first time in their history against an American team. Joe Stainer tied the score at 4 two minutes later but Philly couldn’t capitalize on the momentum switch. After trading a goal a piece this game would have to go to shoot outs. Philly sent out C.J Greene, Tom Lafferty and Joe Stainer. The Tricksters scored on their first shot and Greene followed with a miss. The Tricksters scored on their second shot putting the pressure on Lafferty to keep it alive. Lafferty scored and Menschner followed that up with a big save. It all fell to Stainer to keep Philly’s hopes alive, he made a good move to beat the goalie but hit the post. Just about all the teams from the tournament were there and everyone was shocked. A Slovakian team had just pulled off one of the biggest upsets in tournament history by defeating the American team with the most experience in that tournament. A gracious Philly team congratulated their opponents on a game well played and prepared for their next opponent.
PBLA's 2008 Prague trip report, 1st of a series. The PBLA sent a team to the annual Aleš Hřebeský Memorial tournament in Prague,CZ for the 7th consecutive year. This year's tournament was by far the best yet in terms of entertainment and competition. The PBLA squad was very small this year mainly due to the struggling US Dollar. Each player pays his/her own way for the tournament and it can be costly. The host club, LCC Radotin, graciously offset some of the costs by waiving the tournament fee and lodging fees. The team did it's own part by taking a path less traveled to get lower airfare and using jerseys from previous years. This years team consisted of Goalie Frank Menschner (Just Sports), Defensmen Bob Stewart (Just Sports), Tom Lafferty (Rage), and Kurt Loescher (Rage) along with offensemen Joe Stainer (Vipers), C.J. Greene (Beer Wolves) and Tim O'Connor (Rage) and three young players from the Czech Republic who were fairly new to the sport. Obviously they could not play the standard Offense-Defense system with so few players and pretty much everybody did some transistion. The tournament boasted teams from 8 different countries this year. In addition to the USA and Czech Republic there were teams from Canada, England, Ireland, Slovakia, Germany and Austria. There were several recent NLL players and dozens of players from last year's world cup including Tim O'Connor (Ireland) and Frank Menschner (USA) on the Philly team. The format this year was to break the 16 teams up into four pools of four teams. Pool A had Philadelphia, Jizni Mesto (CZ) (Champs 2005,2006), Bratislava Tricksters (SK), LCC Tigers (CZ). The other pools were grouped as such; 'B' Boston Megamen (USA), Dublin Riggers (IRE), Old Dogs Plzeň (CZ), TJ Malešice (CZ). 'C' LCC Radotín (CZ) (Champs 1995, 1997-2001), Adanac Warriors (CAN), Wolkersdorf Grasshoppers (AUT), LC Pardubice (CZ). 'D' London Knights (ENG), LK Slavia Praha (CZ), BIBER (GER), LC Šumperk (CZ). Each team would play the teams in their pool once. The top two teams in each pool would advance to the quarter finals while the lower two teams would go into the losers bracket and battle for 9th place. One of the highlight games of the weekend is not even a tournament game. It is the All Star game. This year's game would pit the International All Stars vs the Under 21 Czech National team. The game is carried on Czech National TV and is followed by an entertainment program and fireworks display. I will post more reports on the games Philly played and the Championship, Semi-finals and All Star game soon.
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