#1 Haverford at St. Paul's....A Day Late and Dollar Short

The Fords

I trekked up to the palatial campus of the St. Paul's School last Friday afternoon to check out the game between the Crusaders and the consensus #1 high school team in the land, The Haverford School out of Philly. I'm not sure if it's actually "The" Haverford School, but that's sounds like a befitting name for an elite school. Don't you think? Anyway, I was curious to see what a team with 11+ D1 commits would look like. Turns out, not much better than the team picked to finish 3rd behind BL and Calvert Hall in the MIAA.

Traffic was abysmal and parking even worse. I managed to get there at half-time and get parked about 10 minutes later. My buddy and I took a seat on the periphery of the fans with an actual rooting interest. We didn't want to be sniffed out as outsiders as neither of us had time to slip into a pair of khakis and boat shoes. Surprisingly, SP had the lead when we got to our seats.

Both these kids were ballin'

As the scoreboard suggested, the game was as close as the 10-9 final score. St. Paul's went toe to toe with the Fords. I'm not kidding, that's their nickname.

SP doubling late in the game

Overall impressions.... St. Paul's shot themselves in the foot with a bunch of unforced turnovers and failed clears. Their long poles looked particularly rusty handling the ball. The Haverford faceoff guy looked solid. SP's goalie was solid for the most part and throws a nice outlet pass. Both team's close D played pretty well. Haverford is good at stalling and successfully wasted a good part of the fourth quarter. SP sure turns that scoreboard off quick when they lose. SP's helmets may have been the nicest Warrior lids I've seen to date. The unis weren't bad either. If these schools care about getting a huge crowd, move the start time back until after beltway traffic dies down.

More high res pics on facebook. The game can be seen here.