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Daily Planet Staff 

The Cleavers had the insufferable Eddie Haskell, and Jerry Seinfeld had the nefarious Newman, but the Berkeley High girls lacrosse team may have the most obnoxious neighbor of all. 

Perhaps the Bay Area’s most established girls program, San Francisco’s St. Ignatius High has owned Berkeley the past three years, dealing the Yellowjackets six straight defeats in that span. The Wildcats had already swept BHS in both regular season league games of 2000 heading into last weekend’s Western States Tournament, so it was only fitting that the two schools would meet up once again in the weekend tourney hosted by Stanford.  

Berkeley and SI each won their first four games at the event to earn a trip to the championship game, where the Wildcats would ultimately triumph, 10-3. With the 4-1 weekend record, BHS took home second place honors.  

“SI was the first team (at the tournament) to challenge us,” said BHS attacker Jamie Lee, who scored two of the squad’s three goals against the cross-bay nemesis. “We were really pumped up (going in) because we’d been having such a good weekend.” 

The Yellowjackets managed to post the championship game’s first goal, and found themselves down by only two scores at halftime, but a second-half SI surge would render the advantage insurmountable. According to Lee, the team was taken out of the game emotionally, rather than physically, due in large part to the specter of the losing streak vs. the Wildcats. 

“I think some players got a little intimidated that it was SI,” she said. “We definitely thought we could still take them at halftime, but the tide just turned.” 

The ’Jackets registered victories over Santa Barbara’s Cate High, and Washington’s Holy Names and Bainbridge Island, on Saturday before taking care of Menlo School in Sunday’s semifinal. Despite the setback in the championship game, the squad left Palo Alto loaded with confidence for the remainder of the league season. 

“It was exciting to see the offense come up in the Bishop O’Dowd game (last Wednesday), and it was the same thing on Saturday,” said goalkeeper Joanna Hoch, who shared time in net with Kristen Braasch during the weekend. “They’re really being aggressive.” 

Berkeley High hopes to ride the weekend’s momentum to another league win this Wednesday, when it hosts Monte Vista in a 4 p.m. showdown at the BHS football field.