4-2 Win vs. Old Pros

June 12th, 2003

Brian:
We started this game down 1 woman, as Jeannette was OFF on the other SIDES of town. But she got there soon. They also started down some people, so it balanced out. With Clark and Christian both away, Ramsey played the first half in goal, and made some nice saves. Daniel was solid on left D, as it seemed that's where a lot of the play was early on.

The Old Pros, like last time, passed the ball well, especially their women. Their men passed the ball well to their men. Oh well. Early on Vasey got called for a foul after Ref #1 decided that their #29 had done a nice enough acting job. Ramsey made a nice save on the direct kick from just outside the box. On the other end, a nice cross from Grant, but DiCarlo and Brian decided to head each other instead of the ball.

Grant, as it happens, came to play tonight. First he started a passing play that led to a standard DiCarlo vs Goalie. DiCarlo usually wins such battles, and put us up 1-0.

Old pros quickly came back. We got lazy on a play and they came in from the side and got a good shot past Ramsey on the short side.

However, we fought back. We worked the ball up the middle and Grant made a beautiful shot to beat their goalie high on his right. [Note that the ambiguity of "his" is deliberate as I don't actually remember which side.] But it was a great shot. Grant also set up a nice Brian vs Goalie, but the Goalie usually wins these battles.

The first half continued without event, ending most unfortunately as we were on a good rush. Mike made the good point that we were pretty lazy through the first half. A good one, and we came back a little stronger in the second.

In the second half Arthur took Ramsey's place in goal. Good call, as Arthur was pretty quiet there. Strong play from Ramsey, back at stopper. Great efforts by Heather, moving the ball up the wing, and getting to lots of loose balls. Vasey and Jeannette working well on the left wing too. After a nice throw in by Jeannette, Vasey made a perfect cross to Grant, who made another great shot beating the goalie high on THE GOALIE'S left. 3-1.

The game started to get chippy though. Their bearded man and #29 were pushing a fair bit, and Bea told one something like, "You can let go, you punk." [I'm told that "punk" was not actually the word she used, but the U and K are correct. Other odds'n'ends, and we did seem to come out on the short end of some calls from Ref #1, who thought that any time one of their players looked slightly hurt from a random collision was grounds for a foul. This despite their men pushing our women around quite a bit. More later.

Some nice chances in front for us - Amy, DiCarlo and Ramsey. Grant set up two more Brian vs Goalie's, but we already discussed that too. Ramsey made a great pass, from DiCarlo, to Brian though, who finally put frustrations to rest, and it was 4-1.

At that point, Mike decided to relieve Arthur. Sure enough, Arthur got in trouble, through actually through no fault of his own. What I thought was a reasonable defensive effort, but their player took a dive and Ref #1 decided to call a foul from quite literally the other end of the field. Ref #2, who had already been overruled once on a call in his end of the field decided not to partake in the discussion.

They got a penalty kick for this call. Mike tried Clark's Mathematical "bait them to one side" move. However #29 made no mistake putting the ball to the side that Mike wasn't baiting him to. Mike's chatter about "poor footing" during the kick didn't seem to worry him.

The game just didn't get much better after that. Lots of chatter with the other players and the refs. I think Ramsey and Heather made an excellent point at the end of the game. Regardless of whether we're right or wrong, the complaining to refs and other players makes us look bad. As one of the leading offenders, I feel bad, because there are a lot of our team who never complain, and we complainers let them down. Something to think about. Especially when we're up 4-1 in a game and are 7-0 on the season.

Okay, that's about all. Great efforts from a lot of people, especially Heather, Daniel, Ramsey, Vasey and Grant. Jeannette played well too and did manage to get one off-sides call to maintain identity.

Scoring:

DiCarlo from Brian and Grant
Grant from Brian and Arthur
Brian from Ramsey and DiCarlo
Grant from Vasey and Jeannette