Team NorCal Blasts Into Santa Barbara

By Bill Glazier, 11/29/15, 1:00PM PST

NorCal Makes Championship Games in All Age Groups! 2022 and HS Win It All!

Team NorCal had a great showing once again this year at the Santa Barbara Showdown in October. We sent all our youth, middle school and high school teams to this Southern California tournament, and we even brought our first girls team ever to participate in the Girls 2022 Division.

For the first time ever in any tournament, our teams made every age bracket championship game. And our 2022/3 and HS Select teams won the Gold Medal in their brackets - going 6-0 and winning the tournament! Overall, our teams were a very respectable 23-10-1, and had the most championship wins and championship game appearances of any club team at the tournament. This was our second year attending the Santa Barbara Showdown.

From HS Coach: Greg Mengis

Our Select Team went 6-0 and won the Open Division Championship. There were tons of individual and team highlights, our D played great and Goalies were outstanding! You can check out this link to the Santa Barbara Tourney Highlight Video, with some of the action we captured on film. https://youtu.be/N53PeCNqbTo But I have to specifically mention the two stats I am most proud of, especially since many of the guys were playing together for the first time. 1) 14 different players scored goals, we had a well balanced attack with a lot of weapons. 2) 41 of our 55 goals were ASSISTED! Phenomenal job sharing the ball and playing unselfish lacrosse. 75% of our goals being assisted, thats a solid stat at any level. Great job again, and congratulations to the Select Team on their first ever Tourney Championship!

From 2023 Coach Steven Harman:

The road to the Championship for the 2022/2023/2024 group carried its challenges, with Coach Alex Sainz making his Team NorCal coaching debut and for some of the boys this was their first 10v10 playing experience ever. Despite these untested factors the team managed victory against all opponents except one, in a game that ended in a tie, facing the team we would ultimately face off against once more in the title game. That contest turned out to be the expected extravaganza, a back and forth match up where Team NorCal stayed ahead but the opponent kept it close, climbed back in, and with two minutes remaining the score was, once again, a tie. With all the pressure on and the whole tournament on the line our boys put together a faceoff win, a string of passes, and found the back of the net for the go ahead game-winner; another thrilling finish where we have come to know the boys meet the moment head on and deliver the victory.

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