Back home again And in the EKL
Game 14 (7-6-1)
8 October vs. Blue Valley Northwest at Home (3-2, OT)
EKL Standings
We were back from Springfield, but we still had to play without Rutter, who still has one bad wheel to go with a new fever.
So Kitts played his second match as our centerback. He is now 2-0 . . . not too shabby. But we continue to play with only two of our starting back line, and with only one of them, playing his normal position.
Northwest has a nice team with worrisome size in the back and available to defend deadballs.
We played an excellent 65 minutes, allowing the Huskies not much, controlling possession, and initiating quite a few nice attacks. We loved Anso getting forward to strike the perfect baseline cross.
With about 20 minutes to go in the match, they brought some of their size forward to play along the front line.
We were approaching the 10-minute mark, getting ready to go double-10 as we had nicely finished the Carthage match on Saturday. We needed to do something to counter the size they had brought up front. We, however, gave up a pretty bad goal on the way to the 10-minute mark at about 16 minute mark. Banyas is tackled but the ball squirts free to McIntosh who plays through the second tackle, and without a secondary defender, he can simply ground one back post to cut the lead to one.
So we went to our 4-2-4 a bit early. We were doing a perfect job of squelching all attacks and creating a few of our own chances when their attack put us in a familiar position that we have been having trouble with—a ball out in the flat in the final third. We specifically went over this in pregame, but we, once again, failed in our execution.
We regrouped. A minute or so into overtime, Omar made a perfect shot back post and upper 90.
Game over.
We named him Man of the Match.
We now have 7 days before we play our final two games. We should be fresh and have at least Rutter, but perhaps Bobby back, as well.
MOM: Omar Sarmiento
STATS:
First Half:
Saints: Shots: 8 (5) Corners: 4 (Siebert, Befort, Fuentes, Laws)
21:40 Ragan (just a great goal as Ragan ran a 1-2 with David, underlapping him to get into the box for the nice, controlled finish)
Huskies: Shots: 5 (2) Corners: 0
Second Half:
Saints: Shots: 3 (2) Corners: 3 (Befort 2, Siebert)
35:27 Siebert (Fuentes hits the diagonal ball, through David, for the 1-time finish)
Huskies: Shots 4: (2) Corners: 1
16:06 Mcintosh (Banyas pushes it forward for the shot through the tackle just above the front post)
1:37 Boci (Banyas executes a nice t-ball to tie it up)
Overtime:
Saints: Shots: 1 (1)
8:59 Omar: (Ragan pushes the ball wide for a nice cut and shoot)
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