Firecrackers Complete 1st Perfect Season!

Date: 06-30-09

david ahlgren

The 1970 Brazil squad won all their qualifiers and all World Cup finals games as they became world champions.  The 1972 Miami Dolphins also never lost on their way to winning the title.  And now we can add the San Jose Firecrackers, albeit to somewhat of a lesser extent, to that list!  Haha, ok yes, a much lesser extent, but we did just complete a dominating season with no losses or ties.

After finding ourselves down 2-0 against the last place team in a meaningless and last-minute scheduled game, we knuckled down and came back 4-2 to close out the season.  We learned that our strength was in our numbers and composure.  The semifinals the next week against the SJ Latinos, pit us against a team of dirty players.  Again, our composure won out and we beat them 5-1.  That was the same score as earlier in the year, even with the game being called early due to their unruliness.  They have since been expelled from the league.

The finals really were a thing of beauty.  It was a hotly contested game, and a familiar final over the past few season.  Agave only gave up 1 first half goal and kept the game close.  Blows between teams were traded, with the one of Firecrackers receiving a punch to the face and the Agavian being ejected.  Then Agave had reason to be angry when one of their players got an accidental, although no less painful elbow to his face.

Josh Patton opened up the scoring with an authoritative upper-v shot from a slotted ball from Brandon Stirm.  The ball came in with a lot of pace, making it easy to send home.  In the Second half, John Basanese made a nice save from a free kick.  It looked to be going in low to the far post, but reacting quickly he managed a finger-tip save.  Ronnie Jenkins also received a pass near midfield from Brandon and proceeded to dribble the entire Agave defense.  This was one of the rare times dribbling that much is a good thing, because he managed to put a nice finish on the ball for what ended up being the game-winning goal.  Brandon then put away one of his own on a fantastic cross from Justin Basanese.

Finals, June 29, 2009

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