The Stealth Dragon

A Washington Stealth Fan Blog

This project is maintained by tfitch

It was a great lacrosse weekend

April 6, 2009
Author: tfitch

Last weekend turned in to the best weekend of lacrosse so far this season for us.  Good games and good times were easy to find.

Friday night we watched the Stealth take it to the Swarm 18-8.  It was 14-1 at one point.  Domination is the best adjective for the game.  But then the fun really came after the game when we were able to go the official post game venue for the Stealth, The Brit in San Jose, and close down the bar with the team.  Due to our travel schedule this was the only time we’d been able to go to The Brit after a game this year and it was amazing.  Talking to the players is so much fun, you get some extra game insight as well as seeing their personalities.  Rhys Duch is excited to take the Rookie scoring record from Gavin Prout next weekend, once we realized he was only five points away *and* playing in Colorado next weekend his eyes kinda lit up.  Rhys has a killer instinct and I did not know that, he is primed to dominate in this league for years to come.  Kyle Sorensen was also really fun to talk with and after making his initial rounds talking to the team Kyle took the time to come sit and talk to us for about 30 minutes.  Brett Manney wears a powder blue sweater instead of a suit jacket and went to school with Joe Flaco.  If you’re not already listening to it, Paul Rabil does his “Nine Minutes with Rabil” podcast on Inside Lacrosse.  It’s well worth your time to learn more about the big guy.  After the bar shutdown it was off to a Taqueria for a some greasy food to soak up the alcohol.  By this point it was 3am, we went to the hotel, saw a few more Stealth players winding down the night and we crashed out because we had to get up at 6:45am for our flight to PDX.

Mucho gracias to all the Stealth for your hospitality.  And I think I owe Tyler Richards some drinks because I we both had tabs at the bar and the same first name. So when I told the bar tender it was “for Tyler” and only had a $41 tab at the end of the night I think he got stuck with a couple of our drinks.  Whoops.  Tyler, I’ll take care of you next time we’re out with all you guys.

Now we’re up to Saturday, after getting up on 3.5 hours sleep we headed back to PDX to get cheer on the Jax against the Mammoth.  (I decided a Mammoth loss was most beneficial to the Stealth, so Go Jax!)  In what is becoming known as “The Sweet Caroline Game” the refs helped the Jax win an OT thriller by gifting the Jax a goal in the 4th quarter that the Mammoth had properly challenged but some how did not have the goal over turned.  Off the top of my head, this was the best crowd I’ve seen in my two years with tickets there.  Despite the Jax having a real stinker of a 3rd quarter and the crowd losing some steam the comeback in the 4th quarter got everyone on their feet and they were loud.  With just over a minute left and the game tied everyone stood up and didn’t sit down again.  They were in the game and fed the players some much needed energy.  After the game there was a good celebration at The Tap Room and we talked to Tyler Codron’s parents who were “blending in to the crowd” by wearing his old jerseys.  We learned from Tyler’s dad that not only do all these players basically live in the same town, they live on the same *street*.  Apparently Dan Stroop live 3 minutes away from Codron and Mammoth rookie Tyler Crompton is 5 minutes away.  There’s definitely something in the water up there.

The end result of the weekend for the teams is a log jam of San Jose, Colorado and Minnesota at 6-8 behind the Portland team that is 7-6 and not even locked in to the playoffs.  The last two weeks are  going to be very exciting.

Go Stealth Go!