Second Half Stumbles Doom Honey Badgers to Defeat: CRU 1 – Austin Blues 4

Miraculously, the rains that were forecast for the weekend never materialized, and instead the drive out to Manor was accompanied by a thick blanket of eery fog. Ominous…. but for which team?

The Honey Badgers welcomed the mythical Ben Lee into the midfield, and alongside Ciro, they formed the central midfield “tower of power”. They were joined on the flanks by Andy and late-arriving Z.

Because of injuries and substitutions, the back line would be in constant flux all day long, but it started out with Jake, Billy, Luke and Crosley in front of Jay’s goal. Apparently the rest of the defense was at Big Dave’s book signing: Looking Towards the Sky: My Life with Rainbows.

With a combined 88 years of guile, experience and plain overall sex appeal, Ryan and Chappy started up front.

Austin Blues are a good side who are sandwiched in the middle of the table with the Honey Badgers, and the first half gave every indication that these two teams were evenly matched. But it was Cameron Road who carved out the best chances to nab a goal. Ryan and Gigi had early looks which might have ended up in the back of the net on another day.

Unfortunately for Luke, the Manor Curse struck him down early in the first half as his ankle buckled. Even worse, it looks like he’s probably out for the rest of the season. No doubt he will be feasting on a warm platter of his Grandmother’s biscuits to quicken the recovery process.

With Luke out, the defense began its game-long shuffle, with Andy shifting to central defense, and Peterson arriving just in time to slot in on the right.

Ben was a welcome addition to the Honey Badger midfield, retaining the ball in his 1987 Run DMC Adidas turf shoes, and always looking for the incisive defense-splitting pass.

At the half it was tied at zeros, but Cameron Road felt they held the advantage and were looking good to get some points out of the game.

After a quick round of delicious Mandarin oranges courtesy of Adam, the Honey Badgers were back out on the field to start the second half.

Within minutes, Cameron Road conceded a corner kick and a Dothraki-looking Blue rose to meet the ball and head it home for a 1-0 lead. Treating it as a wakeup call, the Honey Badgers went on the attack looking to even up the score and they did just that minutes later as the Austin Blues keeper lost him mind for a brief moment.

With a burst of speed usually reserved for lugging his red water jug to and from the field, Adam chased down a loose ball that was heading towards the keeper and caused him to react with such panic, that to this day I still don’t know what happened. Somehow, the keeper tried to play the ball across the goal with his feet and would up knocking it back out into open play where Gigi grabbed it and smashed it home for his first goal since knee surgery. The Austin Blues bench went nuts at their keeper’s strange defensive choice of tactics.

And with that strike, Cameron Road was back in business and tied 1-1.

But the momentum they gained with Gigi’s goal was quickly lost in a bizarre 15 minutes as the Blues roared back with 3 more goals: another corner kick header, a penalty kick given against Ryan as he breathed too heavily on his opponent as he fell to the ground, and a final headed goal inside the box.

Cameron Road tried to mount another comeback charge with Ben and Ciro pulling the strings, and Billy came closest with a fantastic, surging march from our half of the field all the way into the Blues box.

By the end of the game, the back line was a very unorthodox lineup of Chappy, Billy, Ciro and Gigi as everyone else went looking for a goal to get the Honey Badgers back into the game.

But it wasn’t to be, and Cameron Road stumbled out of Manor with a 4-1 loss after a string of 3 good results. Time to huddle deep in the Badger Den, lick their wounds, and live to fight another day.

Man-of-the-Match: Many good choices for this week’s MOTM. Billy was fantastic in defense and really pushed forward to join the attack. Once Ben got warmed up he showed the quality on the ball that is on display at Clark Field every Wednesday. But this week’s award goes to the Charlie Hustle of the day… Adam. His scrappy play directly led to the only goal of the day, and let’s face it…. you simply can’t bring enough Mandarin oranges for your teammates.