I assume when everybody left the match last night they figured out that the horrible thunderstorm that caused the cancellation of our match at half time was over 30 miles away. I printed out the radar coverage of the weather activity at 2100 hours when I got home. The storm was in Columbia Maryland. I suspect since Bryant Alternative sits on the back side of Beacon Hill about 200 ft above Sea Level, while that doesn’t afford us a view of the city it does provide an unobstructed view of thunderheads at 70,000.
The first clue is when you can see the lightning, but can’t hear the thunder, the storm is a long way off. 10 miles is about the max distance you could hear thunder if the lightning is close by. But 30 miles? That’s just crazy. I’m a little beaked that the game was cancelled at half-time. Bottom line, we should have never canx the game last night. I suspect that our referee was trying to join up with friends for a Saturday night party. And why not, he had already pocketed our cash.
We had guests from California who joined the team and only got to play through half time. Much appreciation goes to Rubin J for bringing his boys to play and stepping out of their family reunion to come visit. His son’s played well, and had we moved into the second half, I think we would have been able to break Sringfield's 17 game unbeaten streak.
All in all it was a tremendous 45 minutes of play before the storm. The score was 2 to 3 at the half. But there is no doubt we were putting tremendous pressure on them.
Having both Ben and Matt at the game we worked the formation with both of them playing outside fullbacks with the authority to get forward on the attacks. That formation seems to work very well. Once again Ben was on the score sheet with with another tremendous header off of a signature Tedd corner kick.
Sadly however, we had two big injuries during the match. Jan, was playing his strong sweeper role and was busy cleaning up messes. On one attack he went in on a hard tackle, snatched the ball from the marauding striker which up-ended him at a full sprint. Jan went to ground hard and the player fell with his full weight onto Jan’s shoulder as they hit the ground. The result was a trip to the ER for Jan and a severely separated shoulder. I will not relieve the gory details of Jan writhing around on the pitch in agony, but it was pretty graphic.
Of course the injury didn’t stop him from playing in the wounded warrior tourney on Sunday. Watching him play with a hurt wing tucked into his side, was just as painful.
Mooch sustained the other injury, after he had the best opportunity of the half to score but pulled the ball just wide of the post of a keeper who was readily beat. Alfredo did all the work and then slotted a perfect ball to Mooch who was wide open to take the shot. A few minutes later Mooch had the ball at his feet and was advancing toward the net with only one fullback to beat. He pushed the ball wide, and had clearly beat the defender to his outside, when the defender made an off balance lunge at the ball with his outside foot. He hooked his heel across Mooch’s left foot and came down hard with his heel smashing Mooch’s foot to ground and bringing him straight to the ground. Mooch went immediately knew he had sustained a game ending injury. He got up and tried to walk off the field but fell immediately as he knew he couldn’t put pressure on his foot. However on the side line, the Adam’s Family medical team went to work. Mooch’s foot and putting ice on it to reduce the swelling. Since the game Mooch has sought out Matt’s medical expertise. More details on the injury and his recuperation from treatment to follow in the coming weeks.
While Mooch was on the sidelines icing his foot, Will H was busy taking free kicks and doing the Samba in the penalty box. I didn’t see it, but Will made a run into the box and did his best Brazilian as one of the defenders, swept his legs out from under him as well. No doubt it was the same defender with bad timing. This take down resulted in a PK which Will finished in style.
With only the 45 minutes to judge man-of-the-match I’m going to give the honors to Will H, who seemed to be available in many plays and had numerous touches on the ball, including a well placed free kick, his Brazilian in the box, and of course his successful PK.
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