Bethesda Internationals

30 Oct. '05. After yesterday's fiercely windy match at Muldoon's farm against the McLean Thunder, Inter traveled to play our friends and MD State Champs 2005, the Freestate Titans, at Andy Brown field in Bowie. Playing the Titans has become a rivalry of late with the Titans prevailing last Spring 2005 league play (U14/D1), 1-0, and in the MD State Cup Championship 2005, 1-0, as well as nipping Inter, 1-0, on a cumulative corner kick ruling in the Bethesda Thanksgiving 2004 semi-final after a scoreless match and 2 scoreless OT periods. Previously, Inter prevailed in the Fall 2004 league play (U13/D1), 1-0, after tieing in the Spring 2004 league play (U12/D1), 1-1, and prevailed at the Columbus Day 2003 tournament in Virginia Beach, 3-1, as well as Spring 2003 league play (U11/D1), 3-1. Today, the weather was fabulous with sunny skies and temps in the upper 60's, but the Andy Brown field was far from fabulous and was very narrow (about 60 yards) & quite long (about 130 yards) -- and certainly was not an ideal width for movement of the ball into space and Inter's style of play. The fist half was a hotly contested match with both teams moving the ball upfield into each other's side, but each team's strong defense was able to stop most of the attacks and turn them into counter-attacks -- back and forth. Inter's defenders limited the Titans to just 1 shot on goal & 1 corner kick and the Titans committed 6 fouls. Inter also committed 6 fouls but took 4 shots on goal that went wide or were stopped by their fine keeper. At about the 27 minute mark, the Titans cleared a long ball upfield into Inter's goal mouth and it took a weird bounce up and as Ben tried to chest it away, the ball hit his upper arm in the box and the Titans were awarded a PK. The Titans player, Eric, taking the PK appeared to move to his right and then shoot to the left side of goal but Nat guessed correctly and moved to his left to stop the hard shot and batted the ball away from goal which was then cleared out by Philip. The 1st half ended scoreless. Inter seemed to be energized from Nat's great PK save and played with much more confidence and determination in the second half, taking 4 shots on goal and creating 3 corner kick opportunities and committing just 3 fouls. And, the Titans played as true champions, valiantly battling Inter back and forth, shooting 4 times on goal which went wide or high of goal, and created 1 corner kick while committing 5 fouls. But, the tide turned at about the 7 minute mark when Sam collected a cleared out ball from the Titans around 22 yards and flicked it forward into the goal area about 8-10 yards out to the left where Vitalis collected the ball, turned and fired in a hard, low shot to the goal. The keeper momentarily stopped the ball but the shot was too strong and it passed through his fingers into the net for the 1st goal. Just 2 minutes later at about the 9 minute mark, Skylar launched a perfectly placed corner kick into the center of the goal mouth about 4-5 yards out and Ben timed his jump up to head in a beautiful strike into the net for the 2nd goal. At about the 18 minute mark, on another counter-attack, Nicholas received a pass upfield to the right, dribbled forward to about 30 yards out and launched a perfect serve into the goal mouth about 6 yards out where Ebo collected the ball, turned and fired in the 3rd goal. The Titans broke through the defense on several occasions and fired some hard shots on goal which went wide. Inter's defenders were outstanding in their strong play in limiting the Titans from taking any easy shots and effectively clearing the ball out to initiate the many counter-attacks by Inter. End of match, 3-0, Inter.