DEA Bedford Masters 2

As always, there's good news and bad news.

The good news: We still haven't lost a game and we're still in first place.
The bad news: We didn't put the game away and so we'll need to win when we face these guys again.

The good news: We're continuing to add Patriots players to the roster, with Mesko in goal and now Gostowski at stopper.

A pretty good game in general.  We've gotten to where the first three passes almost always work well.  After that we start to get a bit sketchy, but it's getting better each week.  We had the first good chance for a score, but their keeper made a good effort to block the PK.  We'll have to work on a little more aim and a little less oomph for the next time.  Unfortunately for us, they converted on their first good opportunity at the goal.  A cross from above the box for a header in front of the goal (I believe I've mentioned that our defense can't jump).  Joe did a good job covering the goal and had the ball been aimed straight in he probably would have had it, but it hit the post with a lot of spin and slid into the goal with almost no bounce back.  Nothing Joe could do.

No let down from the team though and we kept the pressure up.  We missed a few opportunities, then finally converted on a long shot from Jeff G. which
hit the crossbar and came down at a sharp angle.  German was there to collect the ball and put it in to tie the game.

Second half was back and forth again.  Joe warned us at the start of the game that the goal seemed low and he could easily reach the bar, so of course
we had to test this out with several high shots that their keeper tipped over.  Good effort by the keeper, but next time, let's trust in Joe and shoot for the
corners when he tells is the goal is short.  Once again Ipswich took the lead as John V. "impeded his ability to shoot the ball" just outside of the box.  The shot was a hard dropping ball that went right over the wall (have I mentioned that we can't jump?) and inside the near post.   Again, no way for Joe to do anything about it.

As we neared the end of the game, still down by one, came a play that I think says a lot about the team.  With everyone pushing forward to try and get the
equalizer, they lobbed a ball over the midline and their two strikers were setting up a 2on1 against Joe.  John Morin ran down the guy with the ball on the right side, forcing him to cross over the striker coming down on the left.  Dave ran him down, and when he made a 6 foot dribble, stripped him of the ball and turned it back upfield.  He played the ball to the midfield (sorry, I don't remember just who was there), which fed it to Jimmy in the left corner.  He then crossed to the back post where German headed in the tying goal.  From a position that could easily had us down 3-1, our defense ran down two strikers.  When the ball turned back up field the midfield was there in support providing several outlets.  When they collected the ball and turned it Jimmy was already running hard for the corner.  When the ball came to Jimmy, German was already pushing in to the back post to receive the quick cross.  That's a team wide effort even though we were down and running out of time.  As long as we keep that up, we'll keep winning.

Looking to our rematch, there are some reasons for optimism.  Other than their two scores, they only had two other real chances, a goal line clear and
one that bounced around a few times in the box, then was cleared.  We had a fair number of chances, at least 3 tipped over the bar, one that rolled right
in front of the goal but just out of reach of two players and Mr. Gostowski's shot that cleared the goal, the field behind it and possibly the first rank of trees.  We controlled the game and didn't let being down get us down.  This is the third week in a row that we've scored a goal because someone followed up  on a shot, a big improvement from seasons past.  Looking good, let's keep it up.
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GM Note:

Good Game boys.  We are still in first place.  We need to run the table now to ensure promotion back to D4 where we belong.   No missing PK's...  thats a 30 pack fine...    Go get them this weekend !!!

 Godfather