By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore.– The Blanchet-Dayton rivalry once more reached it’s crescendo Saturday afternoon at Blanchet Catholic School:
In the District Title Game. For the fourth-straight year.
Traditionally, the game has it’s physicality and mental components. Saturday’s game had it. There was that overtime component. For the third-straight year it went into the bonus time after the two squads were tied at 0-0 after regulation.
And then. For the second-straight year…it went to Penalty Kicks.
And though it didn’t end 5-4 as it did last year in favor of the Pirates, Dayton still managed to control the nerves in the PK round to take it 4-2 to clinch the District Title.
“We knew we had to get the job done,” said Dayton’s Alex Garcia. Every single time we go, we either get a tie or one score every time. We’re always competitive, each team is competitive. My four years playing, always playing them in Districts and League, they’re a great team, one of the best.”
“We play them twice every year, we’ve played them in the District Championship all four years of my High School career, so we know how it is, we know how they play. We switched up our tactics, we went back to what we do and it worked today. We didn’t get the goals we wanted to, but it worked. Playing a team like that, they’re tough and that’s going to prepare us for whoever we play in playoffs,” adds Blanchet’s Henry Wort.
Blanchet’s tatic in Saturday’s game was to go back to a four-man backline that they’ve been traditionally running instead of a five-man backline as they did when the team teams met on October 1. The result was more offensive opportunities and more of a balanced back-and-forth battle between the two squads throughout the game.
“It worked, we had chances, but we couldn’t put it away,” Wort said.
And as both squads await their playoff opponent’s the goal is still the same: Make a run to the Finals. And it all starts when they get back to practice on Monday.
“We got to work together. We got to put everything aside and lock-in. Like coach always says, we can enjoy today, but once we get to the next day, we got to lock-in because it’s a new season. We got playoffs. We got to stay locked-in and work together,” said Garcia.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
