6/15/09
They Said It Couldn’t Be Done

After trying but failing miserably by coming in 4th place at the 2008 Nationals, Venom started the new season with high hopes as usual. But their hopes were quickly dwindled when they came in 4th in New Jersey as well. So when Venom players Josh Schwartz, John Mulhern, Andy Jenks, Matt Shields, and Mike Coughlin took flight for the 2009 Nationals in Colorado Springs they were hoping for the win but knew it would be a long battle.

The first game pitted them against a rival they knew all too well New York. After starting off slow and being down 2-1. Venom fought hard and was leading 15 to 6 in the middle of the second half when Mike Coughlin scored his first national goal to envoke the mercy rule and end Game 1. This worried them however because they weren’t expecting the game to go so poorly. The next morning they played Arizona. Again starting off slowly only being up 2-1 Arizona tried to put up a fight but Venom eventually took the lead to make it 13-4 at which point Matt Shields put in the goal to envoke their second mercy and secure victory. Their third game would pit them against the Michigan Wrecking Crew. Venom tried a different strategy by playing John Mulhern at center instead of the starter Josh. But this would be no mercy as Venom fought and clawed their way to a 6-3 win. This gave them a number two seed for the quarter finals which had them paired up with Illonois. Venom started off strong being up 3-1 at the half but things looked bleak in the second half when Illonois came within a goal of tying it up at 5-4. But Venom came out on top and advanced to the semi finals.

This surprised nobody because it wasn’t a big deal for Venom to make it to the semi finals where they would play Florida. This game was by far the toughest game as they traded goal after goal in the first half to make it a tie score 3-3 at half. But Venom figured out their game especially with John at center again and won a trip to the championship game with a score of 5-3. They would be playing Utah.

Now this was the 4th year in a row that PA was playing Utah in some form of a final four game. The previous 3 years had been in the semi finals and both teams had stepped up their game to bring this farmilliar matchup to the next level by playing for a national championship. Utah had made it to the finals the year before by beating PA in the semi finals and had lost to Florida. And the last time PA was in the finals was in 2007 against Wrecking Crew where they had lost.

Now at the beginning of the tournament most of the people there had expected to see PA versus Utah in the finals but everyone had expected Utah to win comfortably.

What can only be described as a gut feeling acting coach John Mulhern decided to put Josh at center to give himself more of an offensive help to the team. Now Josh had never played starting center in a national championship game so he was a bit nervous. However nerves disappeared and what was replaced can only be described as poetry in motion as Venom played what could be one of the best games since the original Venom back in 2003 and 04. Utah took the first blow with a shot to Andy’s corner on right wing. But John retaliated with a goal the very next throw to tie it up. From then on PA didn’t look back that half and scored a goal to give them the lead 2-1 at halftime. Venom was calm cool and relaxed and most importantly confident. When the second half started Venom knew they were only 600 seconds away from a national championship. But could they hang on for the win. With John and Andy scoring one more goal a piece within the first 5 minutes of the second half Venom knew that all they had to do was defend their way to a victory. But it was no easy task as Utah fired everything they had at Venom. They focused mainly on John to tire him out and Josh because they knew normally he was weak in the gaps.
This turned out to work to PA’s advantage because with a 4-1 lead John didn’t need to play anymore and played some of the smartest goalball ever as he passed it off to Andy who proved to be quite an offensive threat this tournament. With one second left PA called a time out and gathered in the center to hold the ball and when the officials called play and the buzzer went off they threw the ball in the air with a triumphant cry as they had just become the 2009 national champions.

With Andy and John throwing some of their hardest balls this weekend and Josh playing his best defense ever in that final game. PA achieved what no other men’s team had which was 5 national championships in 10 years. With this goal gone their new goal will be to defend the title in 2010 where Nationals is being held in none other than Philadelphia.

10/29/08
BSO / PA Goalball Boys come in second place.

The BSO Boys goalball team had high expectations to live up to heading into this past weekend’s High School National Goalball Championships. As defending champions they were expected to finish well. Play went great on Friday for the boys as they beat New York 11-5, Arizona 12-6, Utah 8-3 and Atlanta 10-0 in a mercy rule game. This meant that BSO was at the top of their pool and would cross-over against Michigan on Saturday morning. Some early sloppiness showed on the part of the guys but they always held at least a 2 goal lead and won the game 8-6. This win set them up for a game in the quarterfinals against Utah. The guys played superbly in this game and beat their opponent 7-2 with the last goal given up occurring just a minute before the end of the game. This now meant that the boys would face the home team of Florida. The Florida team had only one returning starter but with some fresh talent looked hard to beat. They had walloped last year’s runner-up, Illinois, 9-1 in the semis and would play in front of a packed house that was cheering them on. This didn’t mean that BSO had a lack of support though. The numbers were only slightly greater for Florida and the BSO cheers were just as loud. The game went back and forth early with a new member of the team, Donnie Buie scoring the first two BSO goals. The defense started to lack however and the team was down 6-3 early in the second half when they started making an effort to come back. Buie put another one in the net to bring the game close but not a few plays later Florida reopened the score with a goal of their own to make it 7-4. This was when the BSO center, Andy Jenks, and last year’s MVP wanted to help his team go for broke. Committing a handful of high ball penalties was not helping and he straightened out his game throwing balls that the Florida defenders were hardly able to handle. The score eventually drew even at 8-8 after the 4 late goals were scored as well as one was conceded. Yet with 36 seconds left on the clock the BSO defense gave up a goal to allow Florida its first win at Youth Nationals since 2004. The team played far above its expectations, however, as only one member, Andy Jenks, had been on the team before. The team of Jenks, Buie, Matt Shields and Mike Coughlin represented BSO well and may not have won another title but sure did try to. Jenks went on to receive MVP honors as well as being named to the All-American Team. Goal totals included 40 for Jenks, 14 for Buie, 5 for Shields and 4 for “little” Mike Coughlin.

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