DRAW: 2-2 vs Hill Country – Trick or Treat! Tentless Badgers Comeback to Earn a Point on Halloween Eve

No tent. No ball. No beer. No Jefe. There were some David S Pumpkins level Halloween tricks going on yesterday at Onion Creek.

Brian Parks did show up for this first action this season after recovering from successful pronoun surgery. He’s now going by “Dem Parks”. He also brought a ball, as did Ciro who showed up late in the latest in leisurewear, nursing his tiny pulled calf which he did at practice.

After Chappy unloaded 2 gallons of undigested C4 into the tree line, it was time for the game to begin. The Badgers wound up with one sub, and Jesus took the spot on the sidelines first with Jaybone between the pipes, Danny, Guillermo, Big Dave and Billy on the back line. Chappy, Adam, and the Brians filled out the midfield, and Derek and Gianluca took their customary spots up top.

Within a minute of the start, Gigi got hold of the ball and sent a shot over, which he followed up with a penalty kick to da moon! Lot’s of early action in the opening minutes of the game which saw the Badgers dominating the ball.

Making up for his two previous misses though, Gianluca came good with the opening goal. Derek got the ball to the byline, and whipped it over to his strike partner who didn’t hit his cleanest shot, but it went in to the near post to give the Badgers the 1-0 lead.

Things were going well for the Badgers. The defense was soaking up pressure, the offense was passing the ball around, and Jaybone wasn’t too troubled.

Until Hill Country got back into the game with a goal after Cameron Road had cleared the initial lines off a corner kick.

With the game all tied up, the Badgers started to get more aggressive and ruffle Hill County’s feathers. Chappy had a crunching slide tackle inside the opponents box that they took offense to, but he was just following Big Dave’s orders.

Oranges.

Jesus started the second half on the left side as he had to leave early, and was putting in a good shift. He’s always eager to get into the mix and had a nice run and cross down the left hand side.

Big Dave was using every part of his body to trap the ball as he added to his first half “gut trap” with a nice “back trap” to confuse the opponents.

Danny powered in two fantastic free kicks from just inside the half line that were begging to be met inside the box.

Hill Country had some large humans playing for them, but the biggest of all was turning into a complainer as he was tackled by Chappy and didn’t like the Scottish lullaby that Billy decided to sing to him after the fact. No doubt Adam’s Dark Arts were also involved in stoking his rage, but nothing came of the incident except the usual 40 somethings exchanging pleasantries.

As the game started to even out, Hill County snuck in another goal to the far post, thinking they had turned the tide of the game. But, just minutes later, the Honey Badgers roared back and answered with a Sweet D tried and true toe-poke from the top of the box to tie the game back up at 2-2.

And minutes after that, the Badgers and Derek almost took the lead as he engaged the cutback drive and put another shot on target. The keeper managed to push the ball back into open play, where Chappy pounced on it like an overweight, 3 legged Puma attempting to snatch up the last of Luke’s Grandmothers biscuits. With a second to gather his thoughts, Chappy decided on the cheeky chip to the far corner which was nearly there, but the keeper managed to grab it from the top corner at the last moment.

With one of the final plays of the game, the Hill Country keeper sent a goal kick right to the Bald Dome of Power which nodded the ball down to Brian Parks outside the box. His powerful shot had the outstretched keeper beat, but it was just wide of the goal. Nice shot from Brian who played an excellent 90 minutes for his first action of the season.

So it ended up 2-2. Pretty fair result on the day.

Man-of-the-Match: With Ciro’s blessing, Brian Schwarz gets the honors this week. Was the little man showing his central midfield bias? Perhaps, but there’s no arguing that Schwarzy has become on of Cameron Road’s most reliable and dangerous players in the middle of the park.

Post-Match-Report: The post game was cut short due to 1) no tent, 2) not much to drink and 3) the Austin FC playoff game. Thankfully, Ciro did have a few ciders to spread around.