Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Fragile X Classic Tournament

The Gators left SGHS on Friday to go to Silver Spring, Maryland, which is just outside of Washington DC for the Fragile X Classic Tournament hosted by St. John's College High School. The trip was chaperoned by Mrs. Puchalski, Whitlock, and Wolpert. A giant thanks to those moms for helping me out!

The games started at 8:00am sharp on Saturday morning. As always, we got to the game an hour early, so needles to say, the team got an early start that morning. When we got to the field, we noticed some changes. St. John's had changed the tournament to become a half field, 40 minute, 7v7 tournament instead of a full field, hour long, 11v11, as usual. This was the first unexpected surprise of the tournament. Instead of playing Sidwell Friends first, like we had expected, we played half of St. John's team. They were expecting the Gators to come with full force and stacked this half of the team with their best players. The Gators fought hard and the game ended in a tie. In overtime, the referees along with St. John's, made up a rule to solve the overtime, in which we would first go into 3 minutes of 7v7, which we were already playing, and after that, 1 player from each team would play each other in the center of the field and whoever scored first, would win. For those unfamiliar with field hockey, this overtime rule doesn't exist and we were told prior to the game, that we would end a tie in strokes. Harlan '11 took on the job, and played hard after already playing 2 halves and the first overtime. After this new overtime was up, all of the other coaches from the tournament and I met with the referees and St. John's coaches to decide different overtime rules. We all agreed that 3 strokes for each team would be more fair, as that is something we are all accustomed to in regular play.

In the second game, we played the other half of St. John's team. The Gators did not want to end in a tie with St. John's again, and easily claimed a win, 4-0. Scores were made by DeBell '13 assisted by senior captain Albright '11, Caudill '12 assisted by Curtin '12, Albright '11 assisted by Curtin '12, and Curtin '12 assisted by Caudill '12.

In the third game, we played National Cathedral School. Last year at Fragile X, we played them first, and lost by 2. This year, the Gators are stronger than ever, and ended the game in a tie. We had to go to overtime for strokes!

After lots of success in the Fragile X Classic, the Gators are ready to take on the Lady Indians on Wednesday, the 7th at Powhatan High School. This should be an exciting, high energy game! Come out and support the Gators!

No comments:

Post a Comment