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Captain's Log 8/11/2008
For those of you that don’t know, since the spring session of 2005 we
have played the Halcones 8 times.
Our record against them in that time is 7 wins and 1 loss with 21
goals for and 9 goals against.
Out of all those teams I would say that we saw their best last
night. They have added at
least 5 new players in an attempt to dethrone the champs . . . maybe
next time.
They ran hard against a half asleep Firecrackers team right from the
beginning and to their credit, never did stop.
We struggled to maintain control and ended up just sending long
balls from our defense trying for break-aways.
They kept trying to send it down our left side and then play a
cross into the middle from there.
Our defense was able to stop most of their crosses or win the
balls in the air stopping any opportunities they tried to produce even
if it was sloppy at times.
The ball seemed to have a mind of its own in the first half taking bad
bounces making our attempts at clearing the ball nothing more than
swings and misses at times.
Not long into the first half Sturges and I decided we would try and kill
as much time as possible in order to give the rest of our team time to
show up and to end the half with the sun in our eyes.
This seemed to work pretty well for us since as the game went
along we became more and more controlled.
The first half ended just as we wanted with no goals given up and
only one shot against as I remember.
Now it would be their turn to stare into the sun and to play
against a team that would come out much more settled.
It has always been my opinion that when John Basanese is on the
field it has a calming affect on our team.
In the second half he was able to settle the ball and create
opportunities. Johnny is
not the one making all the runs anymore ;) but he can be just as
affective in the middle holding the ball and talking, not to mention our
free corner kicks we get any time we get a throw in on their side of the
field.
Our new defender Rich made his presence felt in his second game
scoring what turned out to be the winning goal and thwarting several
Halcone attempts at break-aways with well timed clears and challenges.
Rich and Brian play very well together in the middle and with the
combinations of Devon, Will, Garret and Tone on the sides we have a lot
of depth. We should be able
to shut a lot of teams out this session.
Their only “real shot” came on what was probably an attempt at a
cross that just sort of carried and may or may not have gone in but was
too close to let go.
The outside mids, Justin, Josh, Paul and even Garret did real
well. The second half the
Halcones started coming with more offense and our mids were able to
track back every time to mark up the outsides and then turn around and
make great runs to create goal scoring chances.
The center mids were outnumbered
it seemed for most of the game but were able to control the most
important part of the field, especially in the second half.
All in all it was a good win.
It was our first shut out and we capitalized on the chances we
had in front of the goal.
Can’t do any better than 2 – 0 after 2 games.
-Trav |
