LaxTV Forums | A Forum About The MCLA

Friday, April 1st
Washington 22 Western Washington 3
Gonzaga 19 Idaho 9

Saturday, April 2nd
Simon Fraser 25 Idaho 6
Montana 11 Pacific Lutheran 6
Puget Sound 12 Central Washington 5
Linfield 10 Lewis & Clark 4
Whitman 21 Albertson 0
Southern Oregon 6 Willamette 4

Sunday, April 3rd
Pacific Lutheran 17 Central Washington 10
Montana 9 Puget Sound 6
Linfield 16 Willamette 3
Western Washington 16 Whitman 10
Gonzaga 15 Oregon State 14 (2OT)

The primary focus of the B Division will be on Ellensburg, where CWU (2-2, 6-5) hosts four big divisional games involving the Wildcats and PLU (2-1, 3-7) Montana (3-0, 5-1) and UPS (3-0, 4-3). The four scheduled games between these teams could all be exciting contests, and could just as easily shake up the rankings as it could extend the staus quo.

Whitman (2-1, 5-2) hosts Albertson Saturday before hitting the road for a big showdown at Western Washington (0-3, 2-4). The Vikings can brighten their at-large playoff hopes immeasurably with a win over the Missionaries, who also need the win but to stay close to Montana in the B-East race.

Linfield (5-0, 7-3) could survive a couple B-South divisional losses this weekend, but likely will rack up two more big "W"s in the quest for an unbeaten conference record.

Kyle will be along shortly to preview the "A"s...

Friday the 1st, Western Washington will travel down to play the Huskies. The Huskies are on a bit of a roll, finally clicking as an offense. The Vikings have had a few tough losses this year, but are a very talented team for those of you that haven't had a chance to watch them play yet. This game has no effects on the playoffs, but is a good test for Western Washington, and UW. Both teams are probably under-rated in their own divisions. No PNCLL team has kept UW under 13 goals this season, and if Peter Bonoff, Jesse Savage and the rest of the Vikings want a win, they'll have to dig deep on defense and ride hard, both of which are WWU strengths. Sonkin and Weitz are excellent scorers, with a great cast to support them, this came should be interesting, I may have to make the trip up to see if WWU can shock the Huskies.

Gonzaga vs Idaho could very interesting. With such a short A league season (5 games), Idaho could become a spoiler for the Zags. We only allow 4 A teams into the tournament, and spots are looking scarce. Gonzaga is coming off a big win against CWU, and Rick Kladis is only averaging about 5 ppg this season; Gonzaga really needs to carry their momentum into this game and try to put the Vandals away early. The Vandals are 0-2 this season, and their lack of games this late in the season could hurt them against the 4-3 Zags.

The Clan is at Idaho on Saturday. With the Clan at 2-1 in Divisional play, this game could leave them 3-1, and ready to claim the number two seed. A long drive and some exchange rate problems could make for a more interesting game. Everyone that has played Idaho has said they're better than the score suggests, we'll see which Clan shows up this weekend. We all know they are capable of playing with anyone, but unjuries have left them a bit inconsistent this year. They could use this game as a means to get back on track like the dominant team they've been in the past.

Our last A game of the weekend could be a great one, and definately affects the playoffs. Oregon State is 0-2 in league, while Gonzaga will either be 0-2 or 1-1 after Idaho. Gonzaga has 2 tough games left after this weekend, and wins will be very tough to come by against SFU and UW. OSU has Idaho and Oregon remaining after this weekend. This game should determine the fourth and final playoffs spot in the A. Tyler Tipton has had a tough season so far averaging 8.67 ppg, he's going to try and carry the Beavs past the Bulldogs in Spokane. I'll assume a nice muddy field in Spokane, and some rowdy fans to support the Bulldogs. J. Meinhard hasn't scored a lot of goals this season for OSU, but he averages 2.5ppg, and causes the opposing defense some problems. Best of luck to both teams, we hope for a quick update, it should be a pretty even game.

the montana games this weekend are going to be huge in determining how the playoffs are going to look this year.

Considering that Montana has beaten Boise State and UPS and PLU lost to them, those games should be close hard fought battles that determine the seeding for the B division playoffs.

Ellensburg is going to be crazy this weekend! If you can make it to see some of the games, it will be well worth the drive. Any team can win, and every game will be hard-fought and exciting.

To PLU, UPS, & Montana: If you are bringing spectators, let them know to wrap up, we might get some rain this weekend.

Gonzaga 19, Idaho 9

Pouring rain and wind for most of the game. Started off to a great game with quick goals by each team, but a smaller squad led to freezing cold and tired players on the Idaho side.

On behalf of the Idaho team I would like to apologize for my team’s behavior in the game, from the penalties to the flaunting of a behind the back goal. It looked ridiculous and inappropriate when we were 7 goals down.

I have one question for any Zag players or coaches, why near the end of the game was Rick Kladis the star player on the team still playing attack after there was around an 8-9 goal lead with 5 minutes left. It looked like to me there were plenty of players on the sideline who could have gotten a few minutes.

Hope all of you had a safe trip back to Spokane.

Washington 22
Western Washington 3

I would venture to guess Kladis was still playing, partly because he is the coach, and because he's the heart and sole of that team. He makes the rest of his team better. I would have loved to play with him, I couldn't imagine all the easy goals I could have gotten with him feeding. At the end of the day, I'm sure all the Zags got to play, and I'm sure Rick was trying to get them all goals.

Good luck Idaho. I've heard nothing but good things about your team and future in the PNCLL.

I just checked box score.... 7 goals and 8 assists... Wow, Rick must have been on fire. 8 assists is pretty impressive. Congrats, 15 points in a game is huge.

Kyle Berggren wrote:I would venture to guess Kladis was still playing, partly because he is the coach, and because he's the heart and sole of that team.

Isn't there an MDIA rule that teams must have an adult who is not a player as the coach?

I'm sure Western will post something on the PNCLL site, but I'd like to know their side of the game. Washington's description sounds a little sugar coated, but congrats on a solid W.

I'll take this one...

We were working on some different things that we need to get down for our next few games. Also, we were man-up pretty much the entire 4th quarter, which actually was frustrating for us because that's not what we wanted to be working on.

Running up the score or padding stats is most definately not what we were trying to do, and I feel very confident that anyone who knows myself would easily believe that (not to mention that I had NO idea I was above 10). However, I felt that practicing certain things we needed to was more important for our team than just trying to run out the clock, and we did them well which meant more guys getting open looks.

15 points is crazy, I definately understand that, but looking over the game, 17 of our 19 goals were assisted and thats gonna lead to some very inflated numbers.

Summary- I hope I didn't anger UI in choosing to do what I did, but from where I am coming from, my job is to make sure that my team is as ready to go as possible for every game, which meant using the last half of the game to work on things.

Great game UI, I thought you looked very professional in your new jerseys and you played very hard.

Running up the score or padding stats is most definately not what we were trying to do, and I feel very confident that anyone who knows myself would easily believe that

Very true.

linfield 10 Lewis & Clark 4

SFU 25, Idaho 6

at least it wasn't raining!