Grow the Game®

deutschland_adler_lacrosse_club
Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Share on reddit
Share on whatsapp

Deutschland Adler Report: ELL Plzen A Success!

Jamie Plunkett is back on LaxAllStars with his first report from the European Lacrosse League. Jamie is heading up the Deutschland Adler LC behind the scenes, on the bench, and on the floor, and he’ll be detailing DALC’s progress during the first year of the ELL!

____________________________________________________________________________

Going into the weekend, we all knew our first ELL tournament was not going to be an easy task… actually we knew that from the beginning. First off, we were going into the weekend with an extremely short bench, as many of our Bavarian players were attending a wedding of a teammate. Secondly, this would be the first proper Box Lacrosse Tournament for several of our players.

deutschland_adler_lacrosse_club
Deutschland Adler LC after Game 1.

We hit the floor Saturday at 10am sharp for a light game-day shoot around. This gave us a chance to discuss several key points for the weekend. However, our FIRST-EVER ELL match would prove to be a difficult one, with us facing Aitcom Pardubice.

The game didn’t start out so well for us. After the first 3 minutes DALC were 2 men down, and quickly behind by 3 goals. DALC managed to climb back with in one, and at the end of the 1st period it was 4-2; Pardubice was up. The second period didn’t fare much better for the Adler Lacrosse Club, as we found ourselves down 7-3.

European Lacrosse League 2012, tournament 1
DALC in tournament 1 action in the ELL.

The 3rd period proved to be the best for our young club. DALC never quit and were outscored in the 3rd period 5-4. This showed everyone in the league that no matter what, we would never quit. The final score was 12-7 for Pardubice, and yet I was still really proud of our guys. DALC’s Pavel Dosly and Tim Wunderlich were 1 and 1 and Adam Marshall had 2 helpers.

(Editor’s Note: he doesn’t mention it, but Jamie also ended up leading the team in scoring 5 goals and 1 assist)  Despite the loss, Adler goalie Christian Geschke played well in goal, stopping 35 of 37 shots in his return to Box Lacrosse after several years off.

The second game against the Radotin Wolves was a lot better for the DALC, if we lost they’d go to the 5th place game, a win guaranteed second and even an outside chance to lead the group. Once again DALC got off to a horrible start finding ourselves down 3-1 against the youngest team in the ELL. The DALC managed to tie it up before the end of the first.

deutschland_adler_lacrosse_club_2
Jamie Plunkett on D for DALC.

The second period belonged to the DALC and there was no looking back, at least for the time being. Things started going the our way when Martin Culman scored 21 seconds into the 2nd period. The entire second belonged to the group from Germany going up 9-4 after two. The 3rd started just the way the second ended with Culman and Wunderlich adding two more. But from here on out it was all Wolves.

With the Wolves going on an unanswered 5 score run of there own, I got called for what I thought was a questionable high stick, and I got put in the seat for 5 minutes. This could have been extremely costly for the club. The DALC players rallied around each other and only allowed one goal in the 5-minute power play. That kind of stuff reinforces how worth while the creation of this club has been.

With the game being over all Deutschland players could take a sigh of relief, as we almost threw the game away. I led all scorers with 5 goals 2 assist’s, while Martin Culman notched a couple more to go 3 and 1. Marshall, Dosly and Wunderlich rounded out the scoring with assists going to Max Nosser, Kai Horstmann and Petr Himl. A true team effort!

With the win the DALC finished 2nd in the group and would play ELL Blue in the 3rd place game. Not a bad start for the upstart German club.

Game three started off the same as the others did with the DALC finding ourselves down 2-0 early in the first. Deutschland tied it up at two-a-piece prior to exchanging goals again before the end of the first. Much to the surprise of spectators, the Adler club then went on to tally six straight goals. DALC at this point was running on pure fumes, having lost a player already and having only dressed eight for this game.

At the end of the second period it was 9-3 for the Adler. Tim Wunderlich made sure that there wouldn’t be any come back mounted by the Blue, as he scored two quick goals to start the 3 rd. Adam Marshall finished out DALC’s scoring for the weekend with his first of the game.

deutschland_adler_lacrosse_club_3 Christian Geschke
Christian Geschke was big back in net for DALC!

Blue would manage to get on the scoreboard one more time when Adam Ondracek scored one with 51 seconds left to play, which would make the final score 12-5. DALC point getters were Jamie Punkett: 5 and 1, Tim Wunderlich: 3 and 1, Artjom Merjasch: 2-1, Pavel Dosly: 1-2 and Adam Marshall: 1-1. Dominik Sika and Christian Geschke did a fantastic job shutting the door on a well-balanced offensive play of Team Blue.

With the win, the DALC finished 3rd in overall standings for the weekend. This is something that we are very proud of, given the lack of box experience from some of our players and also the roster number for the weekend. It is now official that the Deutschland Alder Lacrosse Club in Berlin will host the next ELL weekend on September 22-23 at Eisstadion NeuKolln.

This marks the first time that the ELL will be played outside of Czech or Slovak Republic’s, and is a major step for the ELL and Box Lacrosse in Germany, especially in the wake of the recent announcement from
the FIL about the next WILC being hosted by the Iroquois in 2015.