Bethesda Internationals

24 Sep. '05. Inter played yet another match (4th) out at Muldoon's Farm again and faced its old friends, MSC United, who like the RR's, were playing up for a couple of seasons but returned on-age this fall 2005 season. At the opening whistle, MSC United launched an offensive assault against Inter, possessing and moving the ball into Inter's half and controlled the play for the first 4-5 minutes. But, then Inter came alive and countered to penetrate into MSC United's interior on several occasions, and managed 5 shots own goal. About mid-way through the 1st half, Patrick fired a hard shot from about 20 yards out towards the upper 90 that sailed just wide to the right of goal. And, with about 1 minute left in the 1st half, Vitalis received a long ball near midfield and broke past MSC United's last defender and fired a strong shot on goal around 18 yards out just as their fine GK, Eric, timed his run up to challenge and block the shot away -- as well as blocking another earlier hard shot from the right about 12 yards out. Inter created 1 CK opportunity with 6 fouls (2 offsides with 1 YC on Chris for dissention) while MSC United managed 4 shots on goal and 5 fouls (no offsides). In the 2nd half, at about the 5-6 minute mark, after a foul on Skylar by Jamie, Ben sent a long DK from mid-field into MSC United's goal box about 12 yards out. The ball bounced high up in the air and towards the left where Vitali raced over to collect the ball and served a pretty pass into the goal mouth about 4-5 yards far post to Roque where he turned and kicked a not too strong shot towards goal but the ball took a favorable bounce on the turf upward and an MSC United defender, in an attempt to clear the ball away with his left foot, missed the ball and it fell onto his right leg and deflected backwards into the net for Inter's only goal. Inter could manage only 3 scoring situations in the 2nd half largely due to MSC United's strong defensive pressure/challenges and tackling of the ball while committing 6 fouls. MSC United stepped up its offensive attacks/counters, and took 5 shots on goal with 4 CK opportunities but all attempts went awry of goal -- except for a last CK. With about 6-7 minutes left in the 2nd half, the center official made a bizarre but probably right call on Nat for not releasing the ball within 6 seconds, which allowed MSC United to take an indirect kick from about 15 yards out which luckily failed. Then, with less than 2 minutes left, the center official made an incomprehensible call to award MSC United with a corner kick for a ball which was deflected out of bounds not by an Inter player but by MSC United. In an attempt to clear a ball out/away, Ben kicked the ball from the left side of goal near the end line and it clearly hit an MSC United player and richocheted/bounced backward out of bounds behind the end line -- but, increduously, the center official gave MSC United the corner kick much to the dismay of everyone on the sidelines. And, as luck would have it, the CK was served perfectly into the far post corner area where Skylar jumped up to block/clear it away but was out-jumped by MSC United, Mark, who somehow was able to put his upper body on the ball and glance it downward to the ground and rolled into the lower right hand corner of the net. All in all, the match probably could've been a 0-0 tie as both goals were fortunate for each side, although from Inter's perspective it had more quality shots on goal and had Eric not made those great saves...who knows?