GILROY — The slow starts that plagued Christopher all season seem to be a thing of the past.
The Cougars thrashed San Lorenzo Valley 12-6 in the opening game of the Monterey Bay Pacific League playoffs Tuesday at home. Christopher pounced on the competition early, leading 6-0 after the first quarter. Eight different CHS players were able to score in the contest, but it was goalie Connor McConkie who really shined. McConkie acted like a brick wall against the constant attack from the Rebels, coming up with 16 stops for his team.
“One of them (the stops) was my face, so it’s a little bit numb,” McConkie said. “It was a good game. They beat us twice before and the last one was really close so it felt really good to kind of sweep this time.”
SLV was able to score three goals in the second quarter, but Christopher was there to answer each time — or Gordy Papalias rather. Papalias had a hat trick in that quarter alone and finished the day with four goals on six attempts and two steals.
Matthew Higgenbotham, who had 100 goals in the regular season, was able to score three times for Christopher.
SLV was able to cut Christopher’s lead to five, scoring half way through the fourth quarter to make it 11-6. But that’s as close as the Rebels would get as Christopher would strike once more with 3:24 left in the game.
“The first half was really lovely,” CHS coach Paul Wells said. “We didn’t do our usual thing about digging ourselves a hole and everybody played really, really well. The second half was extremely sloppy I thought — just really poor choices for passes, poor choices for shots. The goalie (McConkie) was spectacular today, really great.”
Christopher, the No. 4 seed, will take on the No. 1 seeded Palma at 5 p.m. Thursday for a chance to fight for the MBL Championship. The winner will play for a title, while the loser will play for third place. Both games are on Saturday at Carmel.
“Palma is going to be a handful,” Wells said. “We came very close to beating them earlier in the year and I think we can do it. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be here.”
