LOSS: 1-4 vs Hill Country United – Nobody Remembers What Happens At NEMP Anyway

Opening Day 2023! A nice and steamy February morning had the Honey Badgers up early with a trip to the wonky fields of NEMP. The mist was rising, as were the bumps on the field.

A strong group gathered pretty much on-time with four subs at their disposal to face off against Hill Country United.

Some good moments early as the Badgers passing game was strong, even if their shooting boots were not warmed up yet as Adam whiffed at a potential shot from his legs instead of using another unspecified part of his body.

But within five minutes or so, Hill Country created a chance deep inside the box and forced Jaybone into his first spectacular save of the season as he stretched out a paw to push the ball wide. But the followup play saw the opponent push in a near-post goal to take the early lead.

No worries though, the Badgers were humming along with Peterson playing particularly well early on with his short range passing. Derek and Jesus both had good looks from deep inside the box, and Schwarzy came in and nailed the crossbar with his first touch of the game.

Nate took his first and last corner kick this season after warming up the slide-tackle machine in his budding duel with Hill Country’s mountain of a forward.

At the back, Jeff Z was also dealing with the big Hill Country #4, looking like he just came back from his Fortune 500 interview with his newly cropped hair. Chris G was also back, basically sprinting all over the pitch and making some nice passes himself. Billy, Guillermo and a trimmer Jefe were keeping Jaybone out of trouble as much as they could.

On the right side, Chappy was feeding the ball down the line to Jesus, hoping to make something happen. And when he wasn’t on the pitch, Jefe made his Captain’s shorts disappear and got a facefull of more than he bargained for!

As the half wore down to a nub, Ciro tried to put in a cross to the back post for Adam, but he was an orange away from getting a touch. Speaking of, the halftime oranges were of a particularly good and tangy crop.

The Badgers continued their good play in the second half, looking for their opening goal. Nate was a whisker away from nailing a header off a corner kick, but Cameron Road just couldn’t find an opening.

At the other end, Adam’s Dark Arts backfired as he “nudged” an opponent off the ball and gave up a free kick from distance. The resulting shot went right to Jaybone, but there was a bit of a clarified butter malfunction with his gloves and Hill Country had another goal on the board.

Make that two more as CRU were plagued by one of their favorite pastimes, the errand back pass. 3-0 Hill Country United and things were looking bleak!

But the Badgers never gave up, and got back on the board with a nice move from the two forward attackers as Jesus slid in a perfect through ball to Chappy with only the keeper to beat. Usually if he’s using his feet that’s a tricky proposition at best, but he smacked it off the old dragon scale toe into the back of the net to get Cameron Road back into the game at 3-1. Must have had just the right combination of gummies and dog medicine in his bloodstream that morning.

From there, everyone was surging forward looking for another goal to get them back into the game. The Brians were linking up like they had a sitcom or something, Nasty Nate was playing up to his moniker by grabbing a yellow card with another tussle with big #4, and Ciro and Derek nearly combined for what would have been a great far post finish but Derek’s karate kid swing didn’t connect with the ball as planned.

The Badgers had some really bad luck as a sprinting Chris G (is there any other kind?) fell victim to one of the hundreds of NEMP gopher holes and rolled his ankle – it didn’t look good. Best wishes to his recovery as he just got back into the lineup after sitting out with a bum knee.

With only minutes left to play, it was an all out attack and Hill County grabbed a consolation goal with a quick counter attack as Chappy and Ciro debated the tactical nuances of kind of forgetting about defense with the game on the line. All was forgiven over post-game gold tops.

So yeah, a 4-1 loss to start out the season wasn’t exactly the plan, but as Peterson said, “whatever happens at 8am in Pville doesn’t matter anyway.” Well said!

Man-of-the-Match: Got to give it up for Chris G as he made his comeback. He was sprinting everywhere and passing well before he fell victim to NEMP and crunched up his ankle. Tough break, but hopefully he will be back sooner rather than later.

Post-Game-Report: Ciro got a gold star for bringing gold tops. Jefe had jersey and kolaches and Verity was on display.