Firecrackers End Regular Season With Win

Date: 09-29-08

Hard to believe that the regular season is already over!  We finished our last game with a 1 – 0 win over newcomer Zitcuaro who played pretty well for a next to last place team.  We showed up to Watson Bowl early to warm up only to find about 3 players from the other team just sitting around waiting to see if they were even going to have enough to play.  At game time there were still only about 5 guys and then all of a sudden another 6 showed up.  Looking at their record and goals for / against this must have been a whole new team because they had some skilled players and the best goalie we have played against all season.  Whether they were their original players or not didn’t really matter though, we were just happy that there were enough to play a game.

This time of year the sun is really not much of a factor any more starting the game in the partial darkness.  Most of this game was played on their end.  We spread the ball well and made some pretty good crosses but we just could not find the back of the net.  Their goalie took everything out of the air and had to make a couple of saves but we really didn’t make life too difficult for him.  At last we got a free kick at the top of the box and Dave hit a hard low shot that Ronnie redirected into the goal.  I couldn’t really see whether he was off sides or not but there were enough screams from Zitacuaro to raise the flag and pull the goal back.  Due to the late start it seemed like the first half was only about 20 minutes so we switched sides with no half time and tied at 0 – 0.

They changed their strategy in the second half sending 4 forwards up every time and just abandoning the mid field.  They seemed to pack their end and our end and hope for a loose ball or break away.  It seemed to provide them some more shots and gave them their only shot on goal but definitely opened up our offense.  We put several shots on goal and their goalie had to come up with several key saves to keep us off the scoreboard.  One cross in particular found Donny alone on the back post which he headed towards the goal only to have the goalie dive in front of him and knock it wide.  Good opportunity but a better save.  They finally broke when Ronnie challenged the goalie on a ball sent in making him bobble the ball just enough for Ronnie to knock it away and then slam it home.  They all stood there with their hands up but it counted this time and we were up 1 – 0.

Their forwards had more opportunities in the second half but most were run down by Rich, Tone, Will and Garret.  They had no speed, no left foot shots and their one set play that took forever to set up went out for a throw in.  In typical fashion instead of looking for the open forward and a better shot each one of them wanted to be the hero and tried to shoot no matter who was in front of them.  So much so that their one corner kick the guy tried to score from the corner instead of just crossing it in!

We were able to finish the season with our first no loss record, 7 – 0 – 1. Depending on what happened last night and what will happen next week it looks like there are about 4 other teams that are still in it that we will have to play again.  La Soledad will probably finish second leaving us the Halcones, San Jose Latinos or Agave to play.  The good thing is our last two games will be at PAL!

Since we have about 4 weeks till our next game I am going to set up a practice or two and who ever can go can go.  If you don’t play on other teams and can’t make the practices you should make an effort to get out and run or kick the ball around.  It would have sucked to even tie that game last night and if we don’t come out ready in the playoffs it is going to be a long winter.  It is single game elimination now so we have to win our next two games.

Good game last night guys!  Let’s enjoy the time off and wait to see who we are going to play next.

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