Hood River News

For the last three weeks the Hood River Valley lacrosse team has been playing bad teams. On Thursday night the Eagles played a pretty good Tualatin team. HRV quickly saw the difference.

After hanging with the Timberwolves for a half, the Eagles were buried by an efficient Tualatin attack in the second in a 16-5 loss.

“They were the best team we’ve seen so far,” said HRV goalie Malcolm McCurdy.

Tualatin hit the Eagles hard and repeatedly in the second half. After taking a three-goal lead to halftime, the Timberwolves slammed the door on any Eagle comeback hopes by scoring five unanswered goals in the third quarter.

Aaron West and Kevin McPherson led the attack for Tualatin with three goals each.

Meanwhile the Eagles’ attack petered out in the second half. After forcing Tualatin keeper Spencer Parham to make nine saves in the first half, he only had to make three in the third quarter and the Eagles only got one shot on goal in the fourth quarter.

That goal, by Andrew Thompson with 10:09 remaining, came when the Eagles were already down nine goals.

As the lead got wider, the game got chippy, with the two sides combining for 26 penalties in the game.

HRV coach Jon Munk said mental errors were to blame for HRV getting in such a big hole in the second half.

“This will be a good lesson in terms of coming out mentally prepared,” he said.

The Eagles will have to continue to work, as their schedule continues to be two-faced the rest of the way.

Going into Thursday night the teams the Eagles have beat have a combined record of 3-20, with all three wins by Oregon City, the two teams the Eagles have been defeated by, Summit and now Tualatin, were 11-3 heading into Thursday.

After losing to Tualatin the Eagles had to turn around and play at Mountain View Friday night. While the Cougars are 2-0 on the season, both their wins came against winless teams Hermiston and Redmond.

After that the Eagles play a state playoff-caliber squad in Liberty, host winless Riverdale and then start league play against a much-improved Central Catholic team which sports wins over Clackamas, Tigard and Aloha.

After seeing the damage Tualatin did in the second half, the team now knows it has to focus on consistency in the run-up to a challenging league schedule.

“We have so much to work on,” McCurdy said.