Purple vs. Maroon

We had a great game with Salem tonight down at Reserve Ave. It ended in a 9-9 tie and was a well played, back and forth game the whole time. I don't think either team led by more than 2 goals at any point. We got killed on the ground balls (their team knew how to pick 'em) and played very uneven defense, but had enough offense to keep it close. Not to say our offense was clicking, but we seemed to be able to muster a goal when it was needed.

The last 3 minutes were a lot of fun. We were down by one and lost the draw. But, some good defense got the ball back and we scored a fast break goal to knot the score.  Salem called a timeout with about 2 minutes left to talk it over and give their players a break (we had numbers and it was a hot night). Again, they won the draw (gotta get those ground balls) and took it down the field. We played really great defense and kept on the ball tight when it got in close. They had a few opportunities but couldn't convert. Finally, our goalie stuffed a shot from just outside the crease and we got a clear with maybe 20 seconds left. We started moving the ball down the field on foot and with the clock headed towards zero, heaved the ball down the field towards our attacking end. One of our players had a good run at it but the ground ball was contested by their defenders and we couldn't come up with it. The horn blew and that was that. No OT tonight.

A couple of observations of things we need to improve: throwing and catching (you can't pass the ball if people don't make accurate passes that are caught by the other person), ground balls (too many misses on wide open opportunities that then went the other way) and proper defense (there were too many people floating around the arc, we got called for one or two three second calls - it could have been half a dozen).