State Quarters at BV Southwest
Game 19: (11-7-1)
4 November vs. Blue Valley Southwest at AntDAC Turf (1-2)
What a quarterfinal, what a final high school match for 10 seniors and me. We did fall 2-1 to the undefeated, number two team in the country, but many of us still think we should be starting overtime. Still, we played well, outplaying the T-wolves for much of the match, and not even resembling the team who fell to them 7-2 earlier in the season.
Coming out in a 4-2-4, Southwest did not get a dangerous shot on goal from the field in the first half. They, however, did score on two long throw-in plays. Those two deadballs became the match.
In the second half, we came out in our standard 4-2-3-1, the first ten minutes with Miles at the "9" and the final 30 with Omar there. In fact, Omar got crushed on a great box ball from Janeway, which led to a PK, that Laws buried.
Most of us felt that Laws PK should have tied the score, as Bobby earlier had just a great put-back on a corner that Befort had headed in. But the side official called the play offsides, and maybe it was. (Check it out..) But we all knew that Befort was not offsides; perhaps another player was.
Those calls can go either way. The match, overall, was very well officiated. Good officiating does allow for a great viewing experience, and this one was just that. The match featured so much area talent playing with so much on the line that all of us who were not playing were just enjoying the best of high school soccer.
Coach Jones, a former Saint Thomas Aquinas assistant, and his lead varsity assistant, Terry Hair, a great high school coach in his own right, have created one of the most dangerous teams around. They are loaded with talent, but they also put teams under pressure so often that the T-Wolves are very hard to defend.
Our guys did so well tonight, handling that pressure. For the most part we shut down that juggernaut of an offense. In the second half the T-wolves got only one shot off, but it did skim off the top of the bar. Our guys, in that second half, now, won all those long throws, all of those crosses, holding them to just one corner.
Our Man of the Match, Spencer Ragan, probably epitomized that play-as-hard-as-you-can-for-as-long-as-you-can attitude that exuded from so many of our guys tonight.
As Coach Hammons said after our closing prayer, "it was an honor to have coached you boys tonight."
I want to thank our seniors for leading this last-dance campaign. Andsew, Nate, Bobby, Spencer, Miles, Omar, Liam, David, Brady and Joseph, we will remember you fondly. You guys had to lead us through a season that kept putting obstacle after obstacle in front of us. You kept responding with positive action after positive action. Those actions will carry over to next year's squad and beyond. Thank you.
MOM: Spencer Ragan
STATS:
First Half:
Saints: Shots: 3 (2) Corners: 1 (Siebert)
T-Wolves: Shots: 7 (4) Corners:1
28:27 Alvarez (Mick's long throw gets flicked to the backpost, then finished after we fail to clear it)
20:11 Liem (Mick's long throw)
Second Half:
Saints: Shots: 4 (3) Corners: 3 (Omar 2, Bobby)
Second Half:
T-Wolves: Shots: 1 (1) Corners: 1
Comments
Post a Comment