Mar. 27th, 2004 - No. 4 Sonoma State plays full game in win over No. 21 Chico State
By Brian Hanson
WCLL Correspondent
ROHNERT PARK, Calif. – In his speech before Saturday afternoon's Chico State game, Sonoma State coach Doug Carl told his squad he wanted to see them play a full, sixty-minute game. He did not want to see one, maybe two quarters of Sonoma lacrosse-he wanted to see every player playing all out for all four quarters.
He got his wish.
In possibly the team's best effort of the season, the Seawolves dominated from the opening face until the final horn in their 17-5 thrashing of Chico State on a glorious Northern California day before 220 fans. With the win, Sonoma improves to 8-2, and 3-0 in the Western Collegiate Lacrosse League. Chico drops to 8-4, 2-2 in the WCLL.
"People have said Sonoma is the only team that can play ten minutes and win a ball game," said M.J. Crickmore, who with 5 points, tied Brian Cummings for game-high scoring honors. "That is a good thing, but we're trying to put together the whole 60-minute game. We tend to let teams back in [the game], so it's something we're trying to tighten up on."
At 10:01 of the first period, the onslaught began. Crickmore was behind the cage on an invert play. He dodged past his defender, drew the slide and dumped a pass to Daniel McDonald for a goal. Then Crickmore, playing in his last season for SSU after prepping at Berkeley High, picked up a loose ball in front, had time for multiple fakes, and slipped the ball past Wildcat goalie Blake Wahrlick (14 saves).
After a Chris Esposito goal on a putback off a rebound, Crickmore went back to work. He scored off an assist from McDonald and then assisted Brian Johnson's goal to close out the first quarter scoring, with the Seawolves in front 5-0.
Besides the 5-0 first-quarter lead, Sonoma had rattled off 17 shots compared to 3 for Chico. The Seawolves were just getting started.
"Even when I was playing, Sonoma always shot a lot of shots," said Chico State coach Rob Warner, a former All-American goalie at Cal.
"We have had a problem this year when we get down a couple of goals, we kind of forget the game plan," added Warner. "We forget our slide packages and rely on our one-on-one defense. We're not playing team defense once we get down."
Sonoma took advantage of a defense in disarray. In the second quarter, the Seawolves ripped 15 more shots and scored four goals, including tallies from Brent Johnson and face-off specialist JD Hamann, 20 seconds apart.
In addition to his nice backside goal, Hamann was brilliant at the face-off X. He helped keep the ball away from the Wildcats, winning 9 of 10 first-half face-offs. With a small contribution from Benny Cannis, Hamann and his wing-mates would go on to give the Seawolves a tremendous 18 of 24 edge in face-off wins.
"We haven't been facing off that well the last couple of weeks," said Hamann. "We needed to get back to the 'Sonoma Blue Collar' mentality on the face-offs. Controlling the ball is so important for us, if we're going to go on our runs. Teams just can't handle it if we keep the pressure on and that is what usually breaks a team down."
Trailing 9-0 at halftime, Chico was feeling the pressure. The Wildcats caught a glimmer of hope when Matt Bissell intercepted a clear and fed freshman Cullen Maroney for a score, but Crickmore and Cummings contributed back-to-back goals and Sonoma State was in front 11-1.
After Chico State scored two left-handed goals-one by Jesse Locke, one by Rhodes Worthington--Esposito, Brian Johnson, and McDonald added goals for SSU and the third quarter ended with the Seawolves in front 14-3.
Sonoma out-scored Chico 3-2 in the fourth quarter and Carl had his 60-minute dream.
In the groundball battle, Sonoma out-fought the Wildcats 26-8 in the first half, and 28-15 in the second.
"We wanted to put together a sixty-minute run," said Carl. "I think we did that today."
The Seawolves never had a red light on their offense, blasting 18 shots in both the third and fourth quarters, finishing with an incredible 68 shots to Chico State's 15.
"We really wanted to emphasize finding the open man and moving the ball," said Carl. "Once we get a goal or two, once we're whipping the ball around, everybody seems to be having fun, including me. When we are getting our shots and guys are cutting hard, then we get relaxed because good things are going to happen."
Scoring report:
CSU: 0-0-3-2= 5
SSU: 5-4-5-3= 17
CSU: Maroney 1g, Bissell 1a, Locke 1g, Worthington 1g, Yob 2g
SSU: McDonald 2g 1a, Crickmore 3g 2a, Esposito 3g, Brian Johnson 2g 1a, Brent Johnson 3g 1a, Cannis 1a, Cummings 1g 4 a, Hamann1g
Shots: CSU 15, SSU 68
Saves: CSU Chico 14 (Wahrlick), SSU 3 (Gomez 3, Johnston 0, Young 0)
Man-up: CSU 0-4, SSU 2-6
Groundballs: CSU 23, SSU 54