Stockport are the team we have been chasing all season. They gave us two drubbings last summer at an U11 tournament, and as recently as October handed us an 8-15 defeat. In all competitions we’ve met them 6 times since Christmas and the gap has been narrowing all the time. We've had a couple of wins at 6 and 8 a side but we'd yet to get the better of them at 10 a side. This all changed yesterday, as this group of young Timperley players played their best lacrosse of the season in the biggest game of their short careers, to win the Onondaga Cup by a score of 12-6.
At the start there was no real pressure on Timperley as we were defintely the underdogs and really had nothing to lose. Give it our best shot and see where it gets us was my outlook on the day. The boys were relaxed and possibly because of this we started the game incredibly strongly, showing no sign of nerves, and by winning every face in the first quarter were able to control the game from the outset. Every player of the front six got involved, and come the end of the quarter we were 5-0 ahead. PJ had already made 4 saves at this point, so it was by no means one way traffic, but we just looked solid.
The second quarter was more of the same, but Stockport defended better and also hit the post three times in this period. Riding our luck slightly we scored a sixth goal right on the half time whistle to earn ourselves an upbeat half time break. 6-0 up at half time it was ours to lose and the coaches and I knew there would be a few awkward questions to answer if we blew it from here.....
We knew Stockport would come hard at us, and by opening the scoring in the third quarter they reminded us that we were in a game. However we scored our seventh before Stockport got two more to give a three quarter time score of 7-3.
The first goal of the last quarter was very important as there is a world of difference between 8-3 and 7-4. It’s all about momentum so the starting ten went back in and once posession went to Timperley from the face the goal eventually came. It was almost job done; the remaining time was still long enough to lose the game for sure, but also long enough to stretch our lead and win comfortably. The game really opened up as both the defences tired but Stockport never got any closer than they’d been at three quarter time. We continued to play our measured passing game as we had the lead to protect; Stockport were going route one with their best player simply running at our defence and zone, looking for the dodge and shot. The Timperley defence got the slide sorted out and only conceded three goals, whilst up the other end we created some cast iron chances to get a further five to seal our victory.

This is the 3rd consecutive Onondaga Cup win for Timperley U12, and this one was done with (bar one) a completely new team compared to last season. It has been very rewarding to coach this team and see them develop over the season. The boys know their roles and positions and they barely put a foot wrong yesterday to bring home their second trophy of the season.

Team is (back) Ed Loveland, George Harper, Patrick McGowan, Jake Sullivan, Louis Humblet, Chris Jurkowski, Jordan Roberts, Chris Burgess (and front) Luke Drummond, Mikolaj Mars, Toby Doughty, Lewis Burkinshaw, PJ Barker and Will Atkins.

Quarterly scores were 5-0 / 1-0 / 1-3 / 5-3 (final 12-6)
Scorers
Humblet 4, Drummond 2, Loveland 2, McGowan 2, Sullivan 2