The second game in series against the travelling American Revolution was against a Spencer Under 23’s / youth team. The youngsters, all of whom have come through the Spencer Juniors programme, put up a good fight against the American pre-college team who repeated their good form showed on Monday when they beat a Spencer ‘senior’ team 11-7.
The Spencer youth squad was supplemented by a few ‘olds’, especially in midfield, but the youngsters were given maximum game time, and in some departments can claim bragging rights over the senior team that played on Monday.
First up, Jamie Stagg won his fair share of face-off’s which maybe highlights how reaction times dip as the years pass. No-one in the senior Monday team could match the reaction speed of the American face-off man.
Next up was team defence. Conceding one less goal for starters, plus (from memory) not conceding a single short handed goal over at least 6 minutes of man-down play during the game. Joe Chomet in the Spencer goal needed a quarter to warm up his eye and reactions but then made some great stops.
Room for improvement was on the clear, which while patient and up the sides of the field, did miss some open midfielders who were screaming for the ball. However as you can see by the scoreline, scoring goals was the main problem for Spencer tonight. For some of the players, it was their first lacrosse since the close of the English league season back in April and this showed with a few basic errors. The Americans did not miss a single turnover opportunity and the ball was very quickly down the other end, pressuring the Spencer goal.
The two Spencer goals came first from Dan Ball, currently studying up at York University, with a strong right-handed drive through (literally) the long-stick defender and a neat shot into the corner. The second game from non-youth current 1st Team captain, Rob Holmes, in his typical style from the left-handed pipe – fake, fake, top corner shot, goal.
Quarter Scores: 0-5 / 1-7 / 1-9 / 2-10
Spencer Scorers: #55 Dan Ball & #11 Rob Holmes
American Revolution Scorers: #8, #11 (3) #12, #25, #7, #18, #5, #24
Goal:
Joe Chomet
Defence:
Bill Fisher
Ben McLellen
Will Clark
Ed Thom *
Long-Stick Midfield:
Will Barrie
Midfield:
Jamie Stagg
Cameron Leslie
Will Walker *
Alan Keeley *
Jonny Clarke *
Rob Holmes *
James Mearns *
Attack:
Dan Ball
Dan Hilton
Jules Glover
Sam Johnson
(*) denotes not technically a ‘youth’ player
The fact that many of the Spencer squad came up through the junior ranks, and this includes Alan Keeley and Will Walker, we thought we’d look through the Spencer archives…