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Saturday LAX at SMU

It’s the second and main day of the two-day Patriot Cup lacrosse event at Ford Stadium. Five matches today beginning in just a few minutes. We open with St. Mark’s facing St. Mary’s from Annapolis, Md. at 9 a.m.

Then, college play will dominate the day. Notre Dame vs. Vermont at noon, Air Force against Bucknell at 2:30, a club match at 5 between Nazareth and Western New England, and a college finale with SMU hosting Texas A&M at 7.

Visit back during the proceedings. Better yet, drop by.

11:46 a.m.: St. Mark’s stood nearly toe to toe with the nation’s top rated high school team, St. Mary’s of Annapolis, Md., early into the third quarter. But the visiting Saints, sending eight seniors into Division I after sending nine last season, built a six-goal lead in the fourth and won 12-8 to improve to 6-0.

During Friday’s first day of play of competition, St. Mark’s players dropped by and watched St. Mary’s dominate Episcopal School of Dallas (and did the same thing against Highland Park while St. Mark’s was playing).  “They [ESD] looked a little scared,” said St. Mark’s senior captain Austin Ham, a midfielder.  “So this morning when we got together, we told our guys they’re just another high school team just like us. I was really proud of the guys, really getting after it.”

Junior attacker Jeff Perkins led St. Mark’s with three goals, but he indicated it was a struggle. “You can tell they’re at a much higher level,” said Perkins, committed to play for Dartmouth. “My defender was real good. I couldn’t get past him. I tried dodging left, right.  Their whole team is like that. But I feel like we kept up with them.”

The loss was the Lions’ first in nine games, including this week’s play against Air Force Prep and Fort Collins, Colo.  Said St. Mark’s head coach Hayward Lee: “Anybody who is competitive seeks out the best and wants to challenge themselves against the best and wants their weaknesses exposed. The list of things we need to work on is longer than you probably have space for. It was a fun game. Our kids enjoyed playing it. We have great respect for them. In the end, I think our kids will be better competitors, better players, better people for it.”

St. Mary’s head coach Matt Hogan said he was impressed with the Lions: “They know what they’re doing. They made some adjustments at the end of the game that gave us a little bit of fits defensively. They have good skills. They have a couple of athletes that can play with us. They’re doing what they need to do. They have a sense of purpose.”

I also visited with St. Mark’s sophomore attacker Daniel Trevino and his golf-playing dad. More on that tomorrow. Next up is Notre Dame against Vermont at noon. ESD grad Colt Power is a freshman goalie for Notre Dame and might see some playing time.

12:55 p.m.: When Notre Dame built a 9-1 lead midway through the second quarter, I thought freshman goalie Colt Power from ESD might get into net for the first time this season. Senior Scott Rodgers has played all but nine minutes in goal for the Irish in getting off to a 5-0 start, ranked third in the country. Rodgers is second among Division I netminders with a .647 save percentage. Junior Brendan Moore has come off the sidelines once this season.

But the pesky Vermont Catamounts, record of 3-2, have closed the gap to 9-4 at halftime. Maybe not a breather after all.

2:16 p.m.: Like me, ESD product Colt Power thought that early 9-1 ND lead might have meant his first game action of the season, though he said he wasn’t told anything before the game. But the Irish didn’t build enough breathing room in the second half, eventually winning 13-7.

So Power spent the game at least adhering to superstition. Fellow back-up goalie Brendan Moore always stood to his right, sophomore midfielder Taylor Tripucka (nephew of former Irish basketball player Kelly Tripucka) to his left.

Post-game, the fun really begins at the Power residence. Barbeque for the entire team. See if they keep in line for that.

Warning: there’s an Air Force flyover scheduled for 2:17 in advance of the 2:30 game between AFA and Bucknell.

2:51 p.m.: Before the start of the Air Force-Bucknell game, a presentation was made to the Wounded Warrior Project. For anyone interested in contributing, click here.

As for the current game, Air Force features two players from North Texas (junior attacker Ridge Fick from Plano West and freshman defender Jack Murtha from Highland Park) and one other Texan (sophomore defender Benson Oldmixon from Austin). Flick is the Falcons’ leading scorer with eight goals and seven assists for 15 points. He’s second in goals.

4:43 p.m.: Tough day for Plano West’s Ridge Flick and the Falcons. They managed only two goals in a 9-2 loss to Bucknell. This despite the fly-over and lots of Air Force promos shown on the Ford Stadium jumbotron and I don’t believe one for the Bison. Not even a mention of the basketball team’s upset of Kansas a few years ago in the Tournament, which surely would have drawn a cheer or two.

Air Force dropped to 3-4 and has only scored six goals in the last two games. “Today we were getting the shots. We just weren’t hitting them,” said Flick, who played for his father, Dave, from fifth grade through high school. “They had a good goalie, and I don’t think we prepared ourselves properly for that. Too many sloppy shots. If we sharpen up our shots, we’re right in that game.”

Flick is a junior and will learn in April if he gets his request to become a pilot. “The officer in charge of the squadron just goes around knocking on doors and says, ‘Hey, congratulations. You got … this job.’ ”

At 5, the fourth of today’s five games will feature club teams from Western New England College in Springfield, Mass., against Nazareth College from Rochester, N.Y. The club teams from SMU and A&M will finish the day at 7.

6:26 p.m.: There’s something to be said about the informal nature of college club sports. Before Texas A&M and SMU started practicing outside Ford Stadium on the football practice fields a few minutes ago, I asked A&M coach Tony Scazzero what his team’s record is. He stared at me for a bit, like I’d demanded small, unmarked bills. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t keep track of that.” He turned to one of his players. “Six-and-six?” the player said, apparently seeking some confirmation. According to their web site, the Aggies are 5-6. And Scazzero, who played at Cornell, came into the season with a record of 400-115 in 29 seasons.

SMU coach Alex Poole, who played at Maryland, firmly reported a 7-1 mark and that SMU has never beaten A&M. He couldn’t say how many games that has been. I’ll give him a mulligan since this is his first season at SMU. I wasn’t about to ask Scazzero.

6:52 p.m.: The Aggies and Mustangs each have two players who originally played college football, or at least walked on. A&M freshman Walter Colt from Houston Stratford (6-2, 180) is a former wide receiver now midfielder, and senior Nick Reinsvold (6-1, 205) from The Woodlands is a defender and former defensive back.

For SMU, Don Johnson is a senior midfielder and sophomore Travis DeJohn is a sophomore defender. Both are graduates of Missouri Country Day School in St. Louis.

Johnson (5-7, 165) has played lacrosse for about eight years. He came to SMU in 2005 to walk on as a running back and wide receiver with Phil Bennett. He said he played on the scout team and dressed for every game that season. “Other than that, it was practice six days a week out on this field,” Johnson said. “A lot of time and effort went into it, from 6 a.m. workouts to study halls at nighttime.”

After that season, he decided to switch over to lacrosse. “I played it in high school and enjoyed the contact, the competition,” he said. “A lot of my friends play. That kind of drew me over here.”

After graduating in economics this spring, Johnson hopes to return home and land a job with Anheuser-Busch.

DeJohn said he came in as a linebacker and was red-shirted in 2007. New football coach June Jones was going to move him to running back for ’08, but DeJohn instead opted for lacrosse. Football, he noted, “is a big-time commitment. I felt like I’d be able to play sports and do school better if I did lacrosse.”

8:04 p.m.: The aforementioned Walker Colt is an attacker, not a midfielder. He scored the game’s first two goals. He and junior attacker Jim Savage from Somerville, N.J., each scored twice for the Aggies, who lead 6-2 at halftime. Both of the Mustangs’ scores came courtesy of junior midfielder Riker Vermilye of McLean, Va.

Attendance for the Patriot Cup is reported at 7,500, compared to 2,500 for last year’s version at Texas Stadium. You’re free to guess how many will show if next year’s event is held in Arlington.

8:53 p.m.: The Aggies’ 5-0 first quarter proved to be too much for SMU. Despite a four-goal night by Riker Vermilye, the Mustangs lost to A&M 11-9 in the last of five games played at Ford Stadium that started 11 hours and 53 minutes ago.

Now the Aggies are 6-6.

I’ll be back on Sunday with a further look at local lacrosse, including little St. Mark’s attacker Daniel Trevino. Maybe all of 5-foot-6 and 140 pounds, he plays in the occasional father-son golf outing with his dad, Lee Trevino, but he’s making his own name in lacrosse. And I’ll also have some information on efforts to bring the game to inner city kids.