May. 11th, 2004 - Ducks clip Eagles' wings in meeting of league champions
Fenton, MO - In the earliest contest of the 2004 MDIA Tournament, the 8th seeded PNCLL Champion Oregon Ducks downed the 9th seeded PCLL Champion Boston College Eagles in a bicoastal league showdown to secure their first ever MDIA Tournament victory. Riding the stellar goaltending of Oregon sophomore Nate Cordova (Portland, OR), who finished with 23 saves on 40 shots, the Ducks weathered a tight first half before rallying in the third quarter to a 14-10 win.
When asked how he prepared for this tournament, and the biggest game of his life, Cordova responded, "I hit the wall a lot, tried to get mentally ready. I don't really get emotionally into games; I tend to keep it really cool. I am more of a thinking player and keep my mind on the game."
With the heat already rising for the early 9:00am start, Boston College looked poised and experienced throughout the first half with one national tournament appearance already under their belts. On the other hand, Oregon suffered from frequent offside calls and player miscommunications. The Ducks also had to contend with an exceptional BC riding unit, led by Eagles' attackman and PCLL Offensive Player of the Year Brian Kinsella (West Chester, PA).
Freshman Boston College midfielder Justin Ashenfelter (Montclair, NJ) continued his dominance at the midfield line, winning 10 of the 11 first half face-offs and robbing any momentum the Ducks could muster off freshman midfielder Julian Coffman's (Berkeley, CA) three first half goals.
"We try to teach our players to not see (lost face-offs) as a downside, but as an opportunity to get the ball back quickly and get it to our offense," said Oregon Head Coach Josh Barbour.
Coffman put the Ducks on the board with the game's first goal, beating BC defender Dave Ranta (Greenwich, CT) and blasting a top shelf shot past the Eagles' goalkeeper Kevin Hines (Londonville, NY) with just over two minutes elapsed.
"I come out early, I'm a lefty, and most teams don't know that, so I'm usually able to score the first couple of goals before they shut down that side," said Coffman. "They really need to play body on a tall guy like me, those stick checks don't help too much."
Sophomore midfielder Ryan Walters (Garden City, NY) responded for the Eagles with a spinning, unassisted bounce shot after freshman defender Adam Donohue (Tiverton, RI) cleared the ball downfield.
Within seconds, BC's Ashenfelter showed why he was the PCLL 1st Team All-Conference specialty midfielder. Ashenfelter scooped the face-off and delivering the ball to midfielder Chris McCann (Glen Ridge, NJ) whose cross crease pass found the quick stick of midfielder Ben Syzek (Cincinnati, OH) to give the Eagles a 2-1 lead.
With Boston College controlling the time of possession in the first quarter, Oregon found themselves aiding their opponent with back to back offside calls.
The tide started to turn for the Ducks when Eagles midfielder Tom Morgan (Edina, MN) was called for unnecessary roughness with 4:00 remaining in the quarter. BC was able to kill the penalty, but before they had time to recover to an even situation, Oregon's Matt Connors (Lake Oswego, OR) took advantage and tied the game at 2-2.
Twenty-three seconds later, Coffman gave Oregon the lead at 2:30 remaining in the first, brushing off the stick checks of three Eagle defenders and pumping two fakes high before delivering the ball into the back of the net.
In the second quarter, Boston College was the first on the board at 9:40. Attackman Alex Goodman (Princeton, NJ) collected a deflected save off a bounce shot by midfielder Dave Dauphinais (Mystic, CT), gently floating the ball over the shoulder of Cordova to tie the game.
With the tournament inexperience of Oregon rearing its head again, the Ducks were called for two consecutive pushing calls, repeatedly awarding the ball to Boston College.
Attackman John Montana (Huntington, NY) took advantage, sweeping from the bottom left corner of the goal and putting a sidearm shot on Cordova's weak side.
Montana's goal would be the last Boston College goal for 13 minutes.
Oregon would run off four unanswered tallies, highlighted by freshman attackman Ryan Warren (West Linn, OR). Warren's quick thinking and athleticism allowed him to post 4 goals, which tied him with Coffman for the team lead.
With Warren driving the cage, he found himself stripped of the ball by the Eagles' Syszek. With the ball dribbling on the ground in front of the cage, Warren dove, and while parallel to the ground, smacked the ball across the plane of the goal, tying the score before landing in the crease.
Coffman would punctuate this Oregon resurgence at 2:00 remaining in the half with an underhanded lefty crank shot to give the Ducks the lead they would hold for the remainder of the game.
The third quarter proved to be Boston College's downfall, with Oregon scoring 5 goals on 12 shots.
With the Ducks finding their groove, they moved the ball easily as a young BC defense began to lose composure.
Even Ashenfelter, who was nearly perfect in the first half, began to feel the Oregon pressure and revealed himself to be mortal as he began to split face-offs with the Duck middies.
"I think I shot myself in the foot a few times," said Ashenfelter. "I jumped offsides a couple of times, I lost my rhythm, and when that happens, bad things start to happen."
"We have a young team, 75% of which are sophomores and freshman," said Jin Chung, Head Coach of Boston College. "Ashenfelter began to get frustrated and in that situation, we gave him a breather and put in Dave Dauphinais who is a really good face-off guy and did well here last year."
"I think our guys were a little jittery," said Barbour when asked about the reversal of face-off percentages between the first and second halves. "I think their (BC's) face-off guy was very good. In our league, Scott (Miller) and Josh (Waldman) had dominated every face-off game, and we were accustomed to that. We knew after the first face-off of the game we would need to make adjustments."
At 11:32 in third quarter, BC's Walters was flagged for slashed Cordova while he attempted to clear the ball. Again the Eagles were successful in the penalty kill, but again found themselves scored on before they could regroup with even numbers when Oregon attackman Taylor Schofield (Los Altos, CA) was able to beat his defender.
With time running out for the Eagles, midfield freshman Mark Hammitt (Madison, NJ) took the offense on his shoulders. Hammitt scored a team high four goals, including three in the fourth quarter, to help bring BC within three goals with 2:00 remaining.
Hammitt twice was able to juke defenders using a wicked shot fake that turned heads, including Cordova's.
"That shot hasn't worked too much this season, but I don't think they were ready for it," said Hammitt.
But in the end, it was Cordova who was turning heads and solidifying the opinion of Oregon as champions, saving the ball 9 times in the fourth period to stop any chance BC had of rallying to victory.
"I didn't think Boston College shot very well overall. They had one guy who could shoot (Hammitt), who beat me off-stick side high. The rest tried to hit me five-hole and were too slow," said Cordova.