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Gonzaga Tournament Day One Latest

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Gonzaga Tournament Day One Latest

Aspetuck vs Loudoun. Alex Goff photo.

The top four in the Gonzaga tournament are Gonzaga, Vienna, Aspetuck, and Fort Hunt.

The games were held at Sega Stadium, the home of the DC Old Glory MLR team, along with two fields outside the stadium in the sports park in Leesburg, Va. 

It was a bit of a weird day. Staples and Vienna played to a 17-17 tie and ended with goalkicks from progressively larger distances. Staples hit the post on one ...

And eventually they still couldn't break the deadlock, so Vienna progressed because they had scored first. Vienna actually led 17-5 with time winding down. But they gave up a try and then were held up in-goal. That led to a goalline dropout that Staples recovered and took all the way down for a score.

Vienna players said they should have closed out that game.

"We thought we had already won it," said scrumhalf Diego Gonzalez. "But you can't think that way."

Vienna followed that game up with a fairly solid 24-0 shutout of Christian Brothers, but Gonzalez said the team wasn't overjoyed with their performance.

Gonzaga Purple opened their account with a 36-12 defeat of Loyola Blakefield and then controlled the scenario against an athletic Greenwich side. Greenwich just couldn't get out of their own 22, and even though the Cardinals have kicking skills, Gonzaga was all over them. Greenwich was quick to the breakdown said No. 8 Burke Carroll, but Gonzaga worked hard to be quicker, and they ran their attack nicely to win 33-5.

It was a fairly humbling experience for Greenwich, which followed that game up by shutting out Loyola Blakefield 19-0. 

Aspetuck produced a nice combination of power and pace, and while, yes, Pearson and Carson Hill are very quick and elusive, the pace we are talking about it the speed of getting the ball where it needs to go. Aspetuck's entire backline, especially Ryan Pereira, was effective. They put on a big lead early against Loudoun and then sealed it by playing field position. They held off a determined Charlotte Cardinals side thanks in large part to two key tries from Perriera.

Charlotte might have thought themselves a bit unlucky not to beat Aspetuck, but they made a crucial error in short-form tournament play, passing up easy points on penalties for a lineout that did not produce a try.

Fort Hunt won their pool despite some very bad turnovers. Playing against Gonzaga Black, Fort Hunt gave up three interception tries and really had to dig deep to forget about those mistakes and play a more structured game. That they did and they defeated Gonzaga Black and Raleigh Redhawks to enter the semis.

So Gonzaga will face Aspetuck and Fort Hunt will face the team they played last week, Vienna, in the semis.

It's Greenwich vs Charlotte in an all-Cardinals Plate semi, and Staples against Raleigh.

In the Bowl semis Looudoun takes on Loyola Blakefield and Christian Brothers will play Gonzaga Black.