Jaguars win first ever boys lacrosse game in school history

Click here for a photo gallery of the Jaguars' first game!

BY: DAN KIDDER

After years of planning, preparation and hard work, it took only 16 seconds for Valley Center’s high school boys lacrosse program to make its mark.
The inaugural season for the Jaguar boys officially began Monday night with a home game against Temecula Valley, and after a pair of lightning-fast scores to open the game, the Jags went on to take an 8–2 victory.
“Seeing it all come together tonight, I’m just ecstatic,” said head coach Robert Talley. “The guys were getting really excited all week, and they were pumped to get out on the field tonight. They played a great game.”
Valley Center Pauma Unified School District (VCPUSD) Superintendent Dr. Lou Obermeyer threw out the honorary first ball, and it wasn’t long after that the Jaguars were celebrating their first goal in school history. The program is only fielding a junior varsity team this season, but plans to move up to the varsity level next year.
Midfielder Garrett Fiehler took the opening draw, scooped up the ball, fired it to attacker Sullivan Shimer, who wheeled into the middle of the field, ran straight to the goal and fired the first shot of the game past the Temecula Valley goaltender as the home crowd went wild.
“It felt really good to score the first goal,” Shimer said after the game. “I owe it all to my team. We were so excited for our first game. We worked hard in practice and we knew we needed a win to help pump up our sport. Our offense really moved the ball well tonight with some great passes, and our defense really shut them down.”
Fiehler followed up the swift score with another one just 13 seconds later. Once again, he won the midfield draw and scooped up the ball, but this time he took off down the center of the field himself and slung the ball past the bewildered keeper to give the Jags a two-goal lead just 29 seconds into the game.
“It was awesome to come out and see what we had,” Fiehler said. “I’m really proud of our guys, especially how the new kids have stepped up and become leaders.”
The game settled down after the furious flurry to open the contest, and despite a couple of near misses by both teams, the score remained 2–0 at the conclusion of the first ten minutes.
Early in the second quarter, Temecula Valley was called for back-to-back penalties, which gave the Jaguars a two-man advantage for nearly a minute. They cashed in before the second player returned from the penalty box, as Shimer unleashed a cannonade of a shot that gave the Jags a 3–0 lead less than a minute into the second period.
Another penalty on the Golden Bears nearly a minute later led to another goal for Valley Center, this time on another run down the middle by Fiehler, who bounced his shot off the turf in front of the goalie and into the back of the net.
Temecula Valley got its first goal midway through the period on a good run up the middle and a bouncing shot that found its way past the keeper.
But as the final seconds of the first half wound down, Fiehler took matters into his own hands once again, splitting the defenders, bouncing back and forth off of body checks and scoring on a perfectly-placed low shot that gave the Jaguars a 5–1 lead at halftime.
The Jags opened the second half much the same way the opened the first half, with a faceoff win by Fiehler, a great pass on the run to Shimer, and another goal on a pinpoint shot to the top corner of the net.
Valley Center extended the lead with another power play goal midway through the quarter, as Jason Blasius ripped a low shot past the goalie to put the Jags out in front 7–1.
Temecula Valley answered with a goal less than a minute later after a Jaguar turnover that led to a long run and a cleverly maneuvered shot to beat the keeper.
Leading 7–2 heading into the fourth quarter, the Jaguar defense stifled the Golden Bears’ attack again and again. Fiehler found one more way to electrify the home crowd with just under six minutes left in the game. With one of the Golden Bears flying down the hashmarks near the home sideline, Fiehler dropped his shoulder and delivered an absolutely obliterating hit to the ball carrier, flattening him in his tracks with a textbook body check. The collision knocked loose, among other things, the ball, which Fiehler alertly scooped up, carried nearly 60 yards and fired past the Temecula Valley goaltender to put the cap on the thrilling win.
“I just saw the guy coming down into our zone, and I didn’t want to let him get past me,” Fiehler said of the thunderous hit. “We’ve got a lot of guys from the football team out here, and I think that being aggressive on the football field transfers to lacrosse really well. And having played with those guys really helps our team unity.”
Fiehler led the scoring with four goals and a pair of assists, while Shimer added three goals and Blasius scored once. In goal, Kyle Stroud stymied the Golden Bears’ offense again and again to earn the victory.
“We had tryouts two weeks ago, so we only had one full week of practice to prepare for this game, so to get a win like that is solid,” Talley added. “This was a dream start to our season.”
All the hard work put in by so many parents, coaches and administrators finally came to fruition for the boys lacrosse program, but the start of the season was nearly derailed by an issue with the field.
“The game almost didn’t happen because the lines for boys lacrosse are different than they are for the girls,” Talley said. “But [VCHS Athletic Director] Mike Cummings came out here in the rain yesterday to paint the new lines so we could play.”
The Jaguars have a pair of away games next on the schedule—at Maranatha Christian at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday and at San Marcos at 5 p.m. on Monday—before they return home next Wednesday for a 6:30 p.m. game against St. Augustine.
“Come out and support the team, it’s a lot of fun to watch,” Talley said. “If you come out once, I know you’ll be back.”

Clean Your Plate

I just had some random things to write tonight, so...here we go.

1. Settlers Of Catan (seen above) is easily my favorite board game ever. It's a great strategy game and each game takes long enough to get you involved, but it doesn't take three days. But my favorite aspect is that it's very much confrontational, hopefully in a good-spirited way. It's kind of like a cross between Risk and Monopoly, with the added mental/psychological twist of being able to trade resources and generally getting inside the heads of your opponents by jamming them in their attempts to build. If you're playing this game and you don't have people glaring at you by the time you get to five or six points, then you're probably not playing it right.

2. I don't remember where I saw this last -- actually, yes I do, but I don't want to admit that it was in a Hardy Boys book I was reading last night, and therefore feel the need to explain why I read books intended for 7-14 year olds -- but I find it interesting how food can often be used as a gift.

In the book, the Hardy brothers run the risk of seriously offending their mother by leaving to investigate a potential lead just when she had finished preparing dinner. She is quickly mollified when the boys come to their senses and stay for dinner before rushing off to tackle the next angle of their current mystery. I've seen this firsthand in not only our own culture, but especially in other cultures. My time living in Mexico included many a dinner offered to us on staff as a way of showing how much we were welcomed and appreciated there.

I always felt a little bad because I really don't like food as much as most people do. I mean, good food is good food, and when I'm hungry, pretty much anything is good food. But, contrary to the old proverb about the way to a man's heart, feeding me isn't necesarily the primary way to achieve my overall happiness.

And again, I feel bad about this because food is such a common gift, as it should be. It's a great way to spend time with other people, celebrate a momentous occasion, or to get people together who may not ordinarily have a reason to get together. Plus, food is typically cheaper than an actual gift, and it can be easily prepared in large quantities so as to involve as many people as possible.

But when food isn't in the top three things that make you happy, it's hard to get excited about another dinner invitation. I suppose this is part of the reason why places like bars and coffee shops exist; they allow for the consumption of something to go along with our interpersonal interactions. And both places offer some kind of mind-altering beverages, which, as I've heard so eloquently said about alcohol, can act as a "social lubricant" that help us shed some of our pesky inhibitions.

And I guess that's what it's all about: doing something that helps us take the focus off of the fact that we're all pretty bad at interacting with other human beings. If we all just gathered in a room and tried to have a party, things would be boring and awkward pretty fast. Throw in a bowl of chips and some salsa, and suddenly you're a karaoke machine away from a swinging shindig.

3. Speaking of board games, Milton Bradley (the baseball player, not the board game company -- had you going there for a second!) added another episode to his semi-annual segment on Sportscenter that profiles his meltdowns on the field. Apparently all he did this time was get ejected for vehemently arguing balls and strikes. But I especially appreciated that the folks at ESPN seemed to already have the edited video clips of his previous outburst ready to go at a moment's notice. It reminds me of the old SNL sketch featuring Dana Carvey as Tom Brokaw reading a series of news openers dealing with the death of Gerald Ford (as seen below).

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

I bet the Sportscenter anchors have a few stories they do this with:

"Brett Favre came out of retirement today and signed on to play midfielder for Eintracht Braunschweig in the German Futball Bundesliga."

"Tiger Woods won the Buick Invitational today by sinking a putt from the parking lot with a snow shovel on the 18th hole."

"San Diego Padres second baseman David Eckstein shocked fans today by openly admitting that he has used performance-enhancing drugs. Eckstein admitted that, although he never used steroids, he has been known to snort pixy stix in the dugout between innings to meet keep his blood sugar levels on par with those of a hummingbird."

"LeBron James has been traded to the New York Knicks for Nate Robinson, the Statue of Liberty, the female half of the cast of Friends and a sympathy card signed by every New Yorker apologizing for destroying the one and final hope that the city of Cleveland has for winning a major sports championship."

...and so on.

4. If you didn't watch the U.S. men's soccer team beat Spain in the semifinals of the FIFA Confederations Cup this week, you should definitely tune in on Sunday to see the final against Brazil. The Americans played really well against the top-ranked team in the world, scoring twice and shutting out the vastly superior talent on the Spanish side. The U.S. has a tough task against Brazil, which beat South Africa 1-0 in the other semifinal to make it to the title game, but if the Americans can hold down the back line like they did against the surging Spaniards, then they have a shot. Even if you don't like soccer, it's huge because this is the first time the U.S. has advanced to the final of a FIFA international competition...and if everybody else in the world thinks soccer is important, we should at least support our boys in their efforts to make us better than everyone else at one more thing.

That's it for now...I'll be back soon with more movie thoughts and we're going to have Steph's review of the David Cook show at the fair last week...stay tuned...