Greetings Firecrackers Friends and Family. After a long winter hiatus of record setting rainfall, one mayoral scandal after another and 2 weeks of delays due to bad field conditions I am happy to officially welcome you to another round of San Jose Firecracker Captain Logs.

Like I mentioned before with all the rain over the past two months the fields that we were normally accustomed to playing on were saturated with puddles and overgrown grass. This delayed the start of our season and moved us to a different playing field and a later start time which would have us kicking off under the lights.

Safe to say at this point the Firecrackers were willing to play on a dirt lot so as long as our season got started.

First challenger up was the Monarcos, a small but quick and determined squad. The Monarcos sported the SJ City league standard 17 to 1 ratio* of Latin to White players.

(* - The SJ Firecrackers sport an 8 to 1 ratio of White to Latin players. Go 'Crackers!)

The Monarcos came into this game carrying the advantage of 18 players versus the 12 that showed up for the Firecrackers.

The game started off with a brisk pace but it became clear very early that the Monarcos could not match our size and team play. With the returning back four of Sturges, Favela, Race and Nelson fronting Travis Bianchi, their tenacious yet 'soft handed' goalkeeper, the Monarcos were repeatedly denied possession and were caught in the offsides trap over 10 times.

Not to be outdone by their own stingy defense the 'Cracker offense put on a display to the tune of a 6-0 final score.

This was one of the more dominant and well played games in recent Firecracker history. The team made great passes and followed them up with great finishes. Not one of the goals scored was a rebound, misplayed ball by the defense, or a fluke. From start to finish the Firecrackers played a polished game. And certain individual efforts from this match could not go unnoticed:

In the backfield Will Race and Devin Nelson repeatedly pushed back any offensive threat from the opponent's front line. This left Brian Sturges plenty of room to roam the middle of the field. He created so many turnovers I lost count at the end. In the midfield Josh Patton scored the capper netting a nice shot into the upper net. Up top we had the ferocious Dave 'The Lionfoot' Ahlgren nailing a hat trick. This long-mained lion was on the prowl hunting down goals like they were a wounded antelope. He might have scored a 4th goal had not the linesman mistakenly waved his offsides flag as Dave beat their last man with a through ball. In fact a funny moment was almost missed right after the whistle was blown. As Dave angrily slammed the ball to the ground and started complaining (screaming) which distracted most of us (BYW he had every right to, it was a horrible call) the sideline ref who made call immediately grabbed his head and yelled, "Oh no, why did I do that.....stupid....aww... I didn't want to do that!". Matt Favela (Firecracker's Saturday goalkeeper) who was an eyewitness had this to say, "He looked really distraught after making that call, he kept yelling at himself. I was concerned that he may harm himself after the game."

Patrick (the ref) if you're out there it's okay. We all make mistakes sometimes and Dave Ahlgren forgives you.........I think.

Well with a great performance by everyone on the Firecracker squad I must narrow it down and reward our Man of the Match. This week's Man of the Match played an all around solid game. He challenged every ball he could, winning most and putting out great passes on his way to 4 assists. He also nailed a screaming shot from on top of the box that gave the keeper no chance for a save.

Ronnie Jenkins you were our Man of the Match.

Overall a great game fellas. If we keep playing like this at full strength we'll go along way.

Until next week,

Captain Favela