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#2 Colorado State Uses Second Half Offensive Explosion to Bury #6 Brigham Young
St. Louis, MO
By Alex Smith
May 14, 2004
Colorado State continued its unprecedented record of
USL-MDIA National Championship Game appearances on Friday afternoon as they
used a huge second half effort to down rival Brigham Young 16-10. The
semifinal victory marks a sixth consecutive time that Colorado State has
reached the final game.
With rain forcing both semifinal contests onto the auxiliary turf fields at
the Anheuser Busch Sports Complex, the #2 Colorado State Rams found
themselves face to face with a rival from the RMLC, the #6 Brigham Young
Cougars.
The Cougars had advanced to the semifinals with an impressive victory over
another RMLC team, the #3 Colorado Buffaloes while the Rams had beaten the
#7 Michigan Wolverines on Wednesday in quarterfinal action. Led by the
great games of Kelten Johnson (Bainbridge HS, WA), Pete Jokisch (Rockhurst
Jesuit, MO) and Mark Plonkey (Golden HS, CO) the Rams were able to outscore
BYU 7-2 in a crucial second half surge.
Both teams had success on the offensive end for most of the first half.
Colorado State’s Tim Farquhar (Collegiate HS, VA) got things going early in
the game when he dodged his man from the top and scored at 13:28. Brigham
Young answered that goal when Jon Mangum finished a play from his brother
Ross just over a minute later. It was a sign of things to come from two
teams that have historically been one of the best rivalries in the USL-MDIA.
A large crowd formed around the turf as the first quarter progressed and
neither team aimed to disappoint. The Rams outscored BYU 5-2 in the rest of
the first quarter to take a 6-3 lead into the first quarter break. Senior
attackman Kelten Johnson showed the type of play that warranted the 2004
Offensive MVP of the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse Conference’s regular season,
scoring two points in the first quarter run. Johnson’s best was yet to
come.
After CSU staked a 9-4 lead midway through the second quarter, Brigham Young
launched their own assault on the Colorado State goal. The Cougars scored
four straight goals to close the gap to 9-8 by halftime. BYU’s talented
freshman attackman, Justin Hier was a key element in the Cougar’s run. Hier
was simply outstanding all day, but particularly in the second when he
seemed to put BYU on his back and had a hand in all of his team’s second
quarter goals. BYU attackman Jon Mangum also had a hat trick by the end of
the first half after he scored one of Hier’s feeds.
Sophomore goaltender Pete Jokisch held strong in the first half. Jokisch
had 7 saves in the second quarter and kept the Cougars from tying or taking
the lead. The CSU defense was put to a serious test by a high-powered BYU
offensive unit that was clicking on all cylinders as the half came to a
close.
At halftime, the crowd got into the game as both teams were playing a very
entertaining style of lacrosse that was clearly the most exciting of the
tournament so far. The Rams came out of the break determined to quell BYU’s
momentum. Colorado State got a fairly quick third quarter strike when Pat
Bird (Bishop O’Dowd HS, CA) caught a feed from Johnson at 13:19 and buried
it to give the Rams a two goal lead.
The Rams proceeded to score two goals in the next five minutes to open up a
comfortable 13-8 lead with 5:54 left in the third. After Michael Murphy
(Lake Oswego HS, OR) scored another goal for the Rams, the Cougars finally
ended a 17 minute scoreless drought when Ross Mangum got a man-up goal at
the end of the third.
Brigham Young was not ready to give up and came out in the fourth determined
to cut into the lead. CSU gave BYU all the momentum they needed with three
penalties in each of the second, third and fourth quarters.
Thanks to the Herculean effort from three of their defensive stars, the Rams
shut down the Cougars’ attack in the second half.
Sophomore defenseman Kellin Bershinsky (Fort Collins HS, CO) matched up with
another of BYU’s talented freshmen, Mark Davis. Davis had scored 12 goals
and 3 assists in BYU’s first two tournament games, but Bershinsky put the
clamps on, limiting the freshman from Bullis, MD to just one assist in the
game. With the other components of BYU’s offense clicking, had Davis gotten
going, the game could have been completely different.
Another sophomore, goaltender Pete Jokisch stepped up his game in the
semifinal win. Joksich was on fire in the fourth quarter, making 9 saves to
bail out his team. The sophomore from Kansas City, KS was sensational all
day, especially on one sequence when he made four saves in a row to keep the
Cougars at bay.
Colorado State’s Mark Plonkey played one of the best games of his season.
The senior primarily handled the duties of defending BYU’s All-American
midfielder Jordan Peel, who was not able to score a point during the game.
Plonkey also was a force on face-offs and riding situations for the Rams.
Another factor in the Rams’ success was junior face-off men Dave Clark
(Cherry Creek HS, CO). Clark won 20 face-offs on the day, including 8 of 10
in the second half.
Colorado State (24-1) moves on to play another familiar rival, this time
from the Western Collegiate Lacrosse League when they will face off with #1
UC-Santa Barbara. The Gauchos handed Colorado State their only loss of the
season at the Michigan Invitational back in April and moved to the finals
with a 15-5 thumping of Sonoma State in the other semifinal.
The game is scheduled for 3:30 on the Championship Field on Saturday. It
will be a rematch of 2003’s final, won by Colorado State 6-4. The Rams are
attempting to be the first team in history to repeat as National Champions
while UCSB looks for their first title in their third final game appearance.
Please follow this link to view live game stats at
http://championship.uslia.com/game.asp?g=107
The game will be presented in real time thanks to the staff of
www.uslia.com.
Score By Quarter:
CSU: 6 – 3 – 5 – 2 = 16
BYU: 3 – 5 – 1 – 1 = 10
Goals:
CSU: Stanitz-Harper (4), Farquhar (3), Johnson, Bird and Murphy (2), Koll,
Robinson and Stone (1)
BYU: Hier (4), J. Mangum (3), R. Mangum (2), Tschaggeny (1)
Assists:
CSU: Johnson (6), Farquhar, Bird and Koll (1)
BYU: Tshaggeny (2), Hier, R. Mangum and Davis (1)
Goaltenders:
CSU: Jokisch (60:00 minutes, 20 saves, 10 goals against)
BYU: Storer (60:00 minutes, 11 saves, 16 goals against)
Shots:
CSU: 41
BYU: 40
Groundballs:
CSU: 42
BYU: 44
Face-Offs:
CSU: 21/29
BYU: 8/29
CSU Scoring for 2004 Play-Offs
Compiled by Alex Smith in May 2004
| Player |
Goals |
Assists |
Points |
| Kelten Johnson |
5 |
11 |
16 |
| Tim Farquhar |
6 |
6 |
12 |
| Nick Stanitz-Harper |
11 |
0 |
11 |
| Pat Bird |
6 |
3 |
9 |
| Derek Koll |
6 |
2 |
8 |
| Matt Johns |
3 |
1 |
4 |
| Tim Chorey |
3 |
1 |
4 |
| Michael Murphy |
3 |
1 |
4 |
| Matt Reiss |
2 |
1 |
3 |
| Dan Stevens |
1 |
2 |
3 |
| Matt Disney |
3 |
0 |
3 |
| Thomas Robinson |
3 |
0 |
3 |
| Mark Plonkey |
1 |
2 |
3 |
| Bo Everett |
0 |
2 |
2 |
| Dave Clark |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| Phil Eichhorn |
0 |
1 |
1 |
| Brian Stone |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| Ryan Price |
0 |
1 |
1 |
| Adam Schnirel |
1 |
0 |
1 |
CSU Goalkeeping for 2004 Play-Offs
Compiled by Alex Smith in May 2004
| Goalie |
Saves |
Goals |
Ag % |
| Pete Jokisch |
50 |
29 |
63.29% |
| Kurt Bisnette |
1 |
1 |
50.00% |
| Garrett Fitzgerald |
0 |
1 |
0.00% |
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