Written by: Kerry Haselton
A huge carpool and sundry other United players pulled into Midvale field to find the Sweeps putting their goals together and lining the field. Apparently, they have to assemble and disassemble their goals every game. Foran is paradise compared to that!
Pregame meetings verified that this game was going to be a little different. The trees on the far side were overhanging the field by about 8 feet, so balls hitting the branches and landing inbounds were to be played as IN. Talk about home field advantage- strategic use of tree rebounds.
Dawn Jordan came out of retirement and played between the pipes, which meant we had 11 players at the start. We picked up one sub in the first half with Laura Walker's arrival. The game started evenly, with both sides taking chances for themselves. We were reminded about 12 minutes in that giving up corners to this team is simply not a good idea. They have a left footed player who can bend that sucker like Beckham from both sides. Sure enough, they got the first goal of the morning at the near post, when one of their tall players headed the ball back toward Meags, who said, "Well, if it hits me in the chest, I ought to be able to stop it." But there was no time to react and it could and would have happened to any of us.
Not long after, we set a lovely series of passes in motion which freed Kelly on the right side. She ran to the goal line and cut the cross back hard to a charging Erin who finished smartly at the far post. 1-1!
The rest of the half we dominated. It was very comfortable at the back with Harv, Ange, Meags and I starting new attacks and the Sweeps imploring each other to start winning balls. Before the end of the half, Linda got the first of her eventual HATTRICK of goals. Angel had the assist.
Meags was man marking the number 3 and doing a great job of it, but she did get through on one of her diagonal runs and she bore down on DJ with menace, but Dawn came out with perfect timing and utterly stuffed her! It was an incredible save.
I heard the Sweeps at halftime, their sometime goalkeeper who was playing central mid saying- "It's ok if we lose this game, as long as we play better second half." I would say overall they did play better second half, starting with the goal we let them score like 30 seconds in. We all stopped, sure we had the number 3 offside- and she just waltzed in there and scored. 2-2, just like that! Dawn got something on it but it dribbled over the goal line. Sweeps continued to press and caused confusion at the back as they overloaded the far post on every cross and we could not get clear. Just about that time, Waldo pulled in. The Sweeps did not want to let us sub her in on their throw in- but they had subbed on ours, so come on get a grip! In she came and with a lot of snazzy forward play, we got our third goal- Linda Feldman! When you're hot, you're HOT! But the game was far from over. Sweeps kept attacking in droves. They won a free kick near the middle of the short field. The ball came in and bounced in front of Dawn on the sandy firm ground and arc'd up over her head and into the net.
Unbelievable.
So it was 3-3. Both teams wanted the game. We were dominant in their half, they were dominant in ours. Waldo had the ball for what seemed like 5 minutes, probing for a shot, left foot, right foot, feet feet feet (Dr. Seuss) but the shot was blocked and fell to Erin who volleyed it, it was saved and then she came in again at the goalkeeper's feet but it hit the post! But we continued to press and Linda got the hattrick- 4-3, and that is how it ended. Dawn stopped the number 3 again and got kicked in the head for her troubles. DJ and Linda share woman of the match honors on this one.
So much hard work by all the mids and forwards - Amy, EJ, Maryann, Erin, Kelly, Linda, and Laura and Waldo to make us successful in this game. And we finished up with time for Harv and Waldo and Bart and I to get a beer at
TGI Fridays before sending our number 9 north on Route 87 towards Vermont.
Thanks everyone who played. It was a chippy, heated game. The Sweeps all slide tackle like push brooms. But we swept them under the rug.
Squad- DJ, Kerry, Harv, Angel, Meags, Erin, Maryann, Kelly, EJ, Linda, Amy, Laura Walker, Laura Halfpenny
No comments:
Post a Comment