By Alex Webbe
In the final Ylvisaker Cup quarterfinal match of the day, Catamount stopped previously unbeaten Bud Light/ERG 14-9 to claim a spot in Wednesday’s semifinals against the winner of Sunday’s 3 pm Mt. Brilliant-Isla Carroll contest.
“We were a bit slow in the beginning of the game, but we finally got our rhythm and things began to work for us,” said Catamount 8-goaler Nicolas Roldan, who accounted for four goals on the day.
“I think the turning point was the fourth chukker,” Roldan added, “we really got working as a team.”
The game was tied at 6-6 at halftime. Catamount returned to the field in the fourth period scoring five unanswered goals to move ahead 11-6.
“We were kind of stuck in the first half,” said Catamount patron Scott Devon, who accounted for one of the fourth chukker goals. “but we finally got on track”
Bud Light/ERG fought back in the fifth with three goals while holding Catamount to a single goal from Brandon Phillips, but continued to trail 12-9.
Rain began to fall in the final chukker as Bud Light/ERG scrambled to catch up. Goals from Catamount’s Todd Offen and Phillips, however, would be the only scores of the period in a 14-9 Catamount win.
Phillips led all scoring with seven goals. Roldan scored four times. Offen scored twice and Devon added a single goal to the win.
Julio Gracida led Bud Light/ERG with five goals (all on penalty shots). Roberto Gonzalez scored three times and Hector Galindo scored once in the loss.
Alejandro Novillo Astrada scored four goals in leading Gillian Johnston’s Bendabout team to a hard-fought 8-4 win over Dawn Jones and the San Saba lineup.
In one of the lowest scoring half’s of play this season, Bendabout’s 10-goaler Miguel Astrada scored twice while two penalty conversions from San Saba’s Toto Collardin and a goal from Jones gave the Texas-based foursome a 3-2 halftime lead.
Oppressive heat figured into the day’s tactics as San Saba was unable to score in the fourth and fifth chukkers while Bendabout took advantages of penalties, scoring on four of them in the ensuing three chukkers. Miguel Novillo Astrada added a goal, as did teammate Orrin Ingram to put the game on ice late in the game. Paco de Narvaez scored his only goal of the match in the waning minutes of the final chukker in the loss. The Bendabout win catapults them into Wednesday’s 3pm semifinal match.
In earlier play, Black Watch patron Neil Hirsch scored four goals to set the pace against a highly touted Skeeterville team only to lose 13-12 in the final chukker of play, giving Skeeterville a berth in Wednesday’s semifinals against Bendabout.
Black Watch received one goal by handicap and quickly made it 2-0 in the first chukker on a goal from Nacho Figueras. Skeeterville’s Julio Arellano and Owen Rinehart connected on penalty shots, with Rinehart adding a goal from the field to take a 3-2 lead after the opening seven-and-a-half minutes of play. That would be the last Skeeterville lead until the final period of the game.
Hirsch scored three goals in the second chukker supported by two goals from 9-goaler Pablo MacDonough to put Black Watch ahead 7-3. Skeeterville cut the gap to 8-6 to close the first half on goals from Rinehart, Arellano and Chris Nevins, while Figueras scored the only Black Watch goal of the chukker.
Goals from Hirsch and MacDonough were answered by a single penalty goal from Rinehart to close the fourth frame with Black Watch holding on to a 10-8 edge.
Four Skeeterville fifth chukker goals knotted the score at 11-11 to close the period with Inaki Laprida scoring the only Black Watch goal.
In the final chukker, Figueras scored first, giving Black Watch a 12-11 lead before two goals from Arellano decided the final outcome with a 13-12 Skeeterville win.