Orangemen vs Braddock Road Mother's Day Prelude

Before Turf Fields

It’s not just May showers this month we’ve been seeing storms of Biblical proportions.  The Potomac river is so swollen the river boats cannot get north of the Memorial Bridge.  And so it was that the Orangemen assembled on Saturday night at Bryant Alternative Field, most expecting, not to get rained out, but to get thunderstormed out.  The lighting and thunder were tremendous.  Some of the team brought their own umbrella’s, Karl held up one with Cheetah print, all he needed was a skirt.  Someone brought a rainbow beach umbrella and lashed it to the equipment box, at one point it seemed like half the team was huddled under it.  Chris H didn't mind the rain, having come back from several months in the desert, he stayed out on the field getting touches on a wet ball. Gooch came to the field looking like a storm was blowing up the beach and he was gonna go surfing..  At 9:13 the ref showed up to speak with both teams to assess whether we wanted to play or not...of course we did.  We knew the lights on the field wouldn’t turn off until at least 11:15 pm so we could wait for the last of the lighting to pass before we would kick off.  At around 9:30 we took the field.  It was still pouring down rain but the danger had passed and would not return.  When the rain stopped midway through the first half, it didn’t return either.  With a temperature nearing 70 it was a fine evening to be playing.  But remember not so long ago...with that much rain we would be playing in the mud.  Those were the days.

We had several guests playing last night including Will who Kendall recruited and Tom brought to us courtesy of Tedd and the Pentagon team.  Braddock Road was coming up short on manpower so we offered them Gene to play in their goal...we would keep Chris with us to amend for his stellar performance against us last week, a Jan went over to play sweeper.  Just a note here for the Orangemen...my policy is to send over our visitors and guests to play with the opponent.  Last night there was a little too much intervention on my decisions on who was going over to play with Braddock...which created significant confusion and prevented us from evenly dividing the side...and they had to play without subs.  So here’s the policy...I will ask Orangemen guests and visitors to play with the opposing team first.  If I ask a veteran to play for the other team that might have to happen, Karl played with Arlington last week for instance.  If you’re new to playing with us expect to spend some time playing against us...just ask Alfredo who spent half a season playing for the “other guys” and doing significant damage against us.  I try to balance the subs I send.  I’m not going to give them all of our best players and I’m not going to give them all of our less than best players...I’m going to balance it out...so that will mean everyone is subject to alternate duty with our opposition from time to time.  Consider it as being “out on loan” just like in the real world.  What I need is cooperation.  Thank you...’nuff said.

We had a strong side last night, even with Gene and Jan starting with Braddock.  We started Gooch and Maurico in the back, with Karl and Greg on the defensive flanks.  Ben returned to his famed stopper position.  Alfredo on Tom played on the attacking midfield positions with Tedd in the center. Mooch and Chris H started up top.  For the first 20 minutes of the game we dominated pitch.  We were passing well, and although we didn’t have a tremendous number of shots on goal, we kept the pressure on in their area of the field.  I don’t remember our keeper, Chris, even getting a hand on the ball to well into the half.  When the break game and Braddocks fast and star player made a solo break on the goal, Chris might have had one touch on the ball.  He stayed planted on his line for too long and when he finally advance on the Blue striker there was little left to do, and Braddock took first blood.  Special call out to Chris when he punts the ball from goal...we have to take advantage of his long clearances...which can travel 60+ yards deep into an attack.  We’ve never experienced clearances those deep so we have to learn how to take advantage of them when Chris is in the net.

On rotation Kendall and then Will stepped in to the forward positions and continued to apply pressure.  Kendall was able to run onto a ball on the left played through by Tom or Tedd.  Kendall collected it and made a run into the box.  With the ball laying nicely for left footed smash past Gene, he took it, and delivered.  It was a fine goal for the Orangemen.  Well set up and well executed.

Through the second half of the game everybody was having fun.  The game was getting physical as Braddock had two physical giants up top along with their extremely fast and talented all around player.  Ben was playing a physical game for us as well as Gooch and Kendall.  Since Jan was playing for Braddock that gave them another physical player.  Through most of the game Ben was mixing it up with their player and with Jan.  Even Mooch was mixing it up with Jan going shoulder to shoulder and knocking him off his feet at least twice...maybe more.  Because it was our physical players going against other physical players I wasn’t too concerned.  The ref started to get worried when it seemed like the physicality was getting a little more intentional and directed.  He stepped in and sorted it out a bit...nevertheless I think everyone involved was having great fun even as their endorphins and in particular their adrenalin was surging.  Due to the aggression in the box, Braddock took down Ben on one of his spectacular runs and awarded a PK which Ben finished with style.

I’m not quite sure of the final score but we hit 2 or 3 and Braddock scored 4.  So it was a great game...and I’m glad it wasn’t cancelled due to the May showers.  Man of the match goes to Tedd last night for three reasons.  One...he was all over the pitch, two he actually tried to put his head on the ball and almost scored, and three, with regard to physically, I rarely see Tedd off his feet and he could be seen laying on the ground, at least once last night in the opposition box.  Great game Tedd!