Game On – Parkway West Motivated!
By Eric Steinhouse (@mesksk)

In their season opener Parkway West came out strong against an over-matched and under-manned Marquette team Wednesday at the PWHS pool 17-6 Wednesday night. Looking toward a 3/28 showdown with SLUH (with numerous games in-between), PWHS came out firing on all cylinders, leading 7-0 after 1st, 9-1 at half ,and 14-3 after 3 before finishing off the Mustangs 17-6. P-West is deeper this year, going ten deep with minimal drop-off, while Marquette struggled with a 2-man bench.

My players of the game: 3 stars to Thomas Lyonfields (7 goals by my count), 2 stars to S. Emde (2011 POY) drawing excessive defensive attention, while 1 star goes to Marquette’s Hayden Cayse, who played like a beast without a deep-enough supporting cast. Honorable mention goes to N. Klemm of P-West (1/3 of the Klemm triumvirate) for drawing 4 kick-outs with superior hustle and position. H. Klemm added 3 goals for the Longhorns.

Marquette chose to aggressively defend S. Emde, which opened numerous opportunities for teammates, as 8 Longhorns tallied goals in the rout. Frustration set-in early for the Mustangs, after a rout of their own on Lafayette earlier in the week. P-West didn’t allow much from set, with quick coverage of Hayden’s and Grant Morris’ sets. Meanwhile, P-West didn’t have to rely much on set, as their counters and good movement to find the open man resulted in numerous open looks converted. P-West head coach Charlie Cutelli is already in mid-season form – working the refs for a roll after a post-stoppage elbow…to no avail. Allen was superb in goal for PWHS both ways, giving way to Dharmavarapu in the 2nd half, while Howland held his own in shallow.

Next up for P-West is the I-55 showdown over spring break, while Marquette waits for FZW on March 27.