When playing in Sacramento in the middle of the summer the biggest factor on everyone’s mind is the heat, but fortunately the weather turned out to be rather pleasant and nowhere near as hot as Team NorCal Lacrosse.

We brought both the Bears and the Quakes to this brand new tournament held on the newly improved Cherry Island fields in Sacramento.   The Bears and Quakes had just come off an exciting weekend at the US Lacrosse West Region Championships where the Bears finished second and had a 5-1 record.  They were looking to finally finish on top, after two second place finishes in their first two tournaments of the summer. 

The Quakes had a challenging start Saturday morning against Booth Lacrosse, but they recovered well with wins of 5-2 over the Rough Riders and 6-3 over Elk Grove to go 2-1 on the day .  Solid netminding from goalies Guy Lyons and Gavin Gannod was augmented by team offense from midfielders Creighton Morgenfeld, Jack Galbraith, Matthew Baer, Keith Hirtle, Dom Pardi, Miles Lin, and Grant Otto.

The Bears eased in to a more favorable Saturday schedule, shutting out its first two opponents 7-0 over Thunder Elite and 12-0 over Elk Grove. Goaltender Tyler Furrier allowed only eleven goals the whole tournament, thanks to his own skills and outstanding defense from Ryan Bara, Evan Keiser, Nathan Richards, Steven Hickman, and Alex Bean.  The stalwart play allowed midfielders James Marren, Justin Quistgaard, Ian Forsberg, Jared Rodi, Mitchell Northcutt, Joseph Celantano, Jack Williams, Billy Barnds, and Declan Stanton to keep the pressure on and go 3-0 on Saturday with a noteworthy 10-5 victory over Booth under the hot midday Saturday sun.

The evening was capped with a summer-best team dinner at Cafeteria 15L where there was great food and more than a little table talk about the Sunday morning 8 am game: the Quakes versus the Bears.

The Quakes showed up ready to play and gained the early advantage.  The electrifying first goal that Sunday morning from Andrew Showalter put the Bears on notice and on edge.  Quakes Coach Kevin Oram said “the boys came out really fired up and ready to play, warming up way before the game on their own” and going into halftime with a 2-0 lead thanks to inspired defense from Clyde Stange, Corin Bell, Ben Scheve, and Will Holthaus. With some extra man offense coaching from Coach Greg Mengis the attackmen Nic Ralston, Andrew Ralston, Davis Booth, Taylor Kaufman, Cole Chroman, Maguire Ferrell, Tripp Chrisman, and Christopher Wilk put forward what Coach Oram considered to be their best performance of the tournament.  The Bears managed to recover and win 6-2, but this was by far the closest game of the weekend for the Bears.  but the close game propelled the Quakes to victory in their next game. 

The Bears recovered quickly, and beat the Riders 15-0 in the final pool play game of the weekend, getting them a rematch with Booth in the finals.  The Quakes soundly defeated Thunder Elite Lax 5-2 to capture third place and the bragging rights. 

The Championship Game rematch with rival Booth was closely contested, but persistent defense and the Bears attack led by Team NorCal tournament MVP Quintin Dwight and Hayden Wheeler, William Brodie,  Evan Eldridge, Ben Kramer, and Luke Williams brought the Bears to an 8-4 win.  As Bears Coach Steven Harman said, “this is what can happen when you do the work to prepare and trust in your teammates to do the same,” and this year the work the boys did led to a perfect day, a perfect 6-0 tournament, and an Aloha Pacific Surf Lacrosse Tournament Championship.

Congratulations Team NorCal!