Bethesda Internationals

1 May '05. This match was moved from the nicer fields at Muldoon's Farm to Kingsview MS after yesterday's rain and poor soggy fields at Muldoon's. Unfortunately, the Kinsgivew MS field was very poor for playing good possession soccer and passing as the turf was extremely clumpy with the ball taking tricky bounces for both sides. Nonetheless, on a sunny but chilly and blustery day, Inter clearly controlled the match against the fiercely competitive TASC America 91 Red team in both havles. After pushing back an attack by the TASC America 91 Red at the about 9 minutes into the match, Skylar sent a crisp long pass up field to the left side to a streaking Ben who pushed up from his center back position. Ben settled the ball and pinched in to the right with a great run on goal, dribbling and eluding defenders to slam in the first goal from about 20 yards out past the GK. Just 2 minutes later, Inter countered another TASC America 91 Red attack and Skylar lofted a ball into the goal mouth at about 6 yards out where Ebo settled, turned and struck in the 2nd goal past the keeper. Later, with about 3 minutes left in the first half, Mati collected a pass from a teammate on the left side and dribbled down towards the corner and crossed a nice ball into the goal mouth to Roque who fired in the 3rd goal. Inter took 8 shots on goal, 1 corner with 4 fouls while the TASC America 91 Red took just 2 SOGs (1 direct) with 2 fouls. In the second half, TASC America 91 Red played more determinedly, and at about the 10 minute mark TASC Premier sent a well placed long ball up field on the left side past the defenders and before Ben (playing GK in place of Nat who was playing up front in the 2nd half) could come out to grab the ball, a TASC America 91 Red player was able to reach the ball and strike a hard shot directly at goal on the ground and the ball managed to find some space thru Ben's grasp/legs and into the goal for TASC America 91 Red's only goal. Inter launched 8 SOG's (1 direct & 1 PK) and 2 CK's with 5 fouls compared to TASC America 91 Red's 3 SOG's (1 direct) with 3 fouls, but Inter was not able to finish several good SOG's that went wide or high, including a last minute PK (due to foul by TASC America 91 Red's GK on Roque in the box) in the second half that sailed a little high over the cross bar.