Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 1/3/1
The Duke’s Lacrosse Club White squad claimed the championship while the Dukes Blue team placed third last week in the Tri-State Holiday Shootout at Peddie School.
Duke’s White was made up primarily of 2015 Duke’s players but also used three 2016’s, goalie Jason Yoquinto (Bishop Shanahan) and defensemen Patrick Lyons (Salesianum School) and Matt Binnion (Harriton).
Duke’s Blue was made up of all 2016 Duke’s players.
Duke’s White went 5-0 Overall and won the Championship 10-7 over a combined Tri-State team.
Despite missing all five of its captains and many other key players, Dukes White saw many players step in and step up to make valuable contributions to the championship.
Overall Co-MVP’s were Matt Donnelly (Clearview Regional) and James Vandegrift (Penn Charter). The offensive MVP was Andrew Pettit (Tower Hill) while the defensive MVP was Chris Friedman (Episcopal Academy).
Key offensive contributors were Zach Drake (La Salle) with 9 goals and 2 assists, Pettit and Vandegrift with 7 goals apiece and Donnelly, Friedman, Zach Hare (Spring-Ford) and Matt Schleicher (Conestoga) each with 5 goals each.
In Pool play, both Dukes Teams went 3-0 and were Seeded #1 and #2.
Duke’s White Won 8-6, 13-7 and 15-0 over Tri-State Green, Tri-State White and NJ Riot before handling the combined Tri-State teams, 8-5, in the semis.
Duke’s Blue won, 13-12, 15-2 and 9-8 in OT over Tri-State Green, Tri-State Gold and Tri-State White, respectively.
Also competing at the tourney was Rebel Elite, made up primarily of PA players.
In the playoffs, Duke’s Blue started out with a dominating 18-3 win over Tri-State Gold to Improve to 4-0 and head to the semis where they it lost, 8-7, to a Tri-State Mixed team or it would have been an ALL-Duke’s Final.
Duke’s Blue ended up 4-1 for the day.
They were led defensively by Andrew Fine (Haverford School), Jack Rapine (Upper Dublin), Chris Rivera (Manheim Township), Jared Walls (La Salle), Austin Clibanoff (La Salle), Andrew Westby (Haverford School), Erik DiGirolamo (Parkland) and goalies Ian Walsh (Shipley School) and Alex Demarco (Haverford School).
Offensively, the highlights were the overall play of Michael Sowers (Upper Dublin) and the OT winner by Forry Smith (Haverford School), who backed down the defense and rifled a shot to the top right corner, winning the final game of pool play 9-8.
Other offensive contributors beside Smith with 9 goals and 3 assists and Sowers with 7 goals and 2 assists were KeyVeat Postell (Haverford School) with 5 goals; 4 goals each from Alec Haas (Haverford School), Carter Gensler (Spring-Ford), Adam Goldner (Malvern Prep), Luke Desperito (Haverford School)and Cody Mazurek (La Salle) while two-way middies and defenders Fine, Christopher Rivera, Rapine, Walls, DiGirolamo and Clibanoff combined to add 13 goals and 2 assists.
Other offensive contributors were Kevin Stump (St. Joseph’s Prep), Craig Coleman (La Salle), Jake Saenz (Hill School) and “Big” Zach Lipkin (Princeton Day School).
