CRU 1 – Fade to Black 1

Sometimes playing in the summer season can be tricky – the vacation bug can strike at any time, making it challenging to field a full team – today was one of those days. If your 8-year old was watching the game on ESPN, he would have asked “Daddy, where are BT, Peterson, Dermot, Jay, Big John, and Steve the goal scoring machine?”

We had to make due with an 11 man squad, no subs and someone had to step up to the plate and stand in goal. That brave soul turned out to be Luke, who donned his deep blue USA jersey with pride and stepped up to man the space between the pipes with grit and determination. 

Fade to Black turned out to be a far trickier side than we had envisioned, starting out two or three men down and sporting a drunken Verity player upfront who wanted nothing more than to score on his D2 BFF’s for an encore… after getting beat by 9-2 earlier in the day. Ouch baby, ouch. 

Fade to Black’s ranks eventually filled out and and it was game on. About 10 minutes into the game, their best offensive player juked and jived and took a shot that Luke valiently got a hand on and tried to push wide, but without keeper gloves he just wasn’t able to keep the squirming shot out of goal. So with that early strike we found ourselves in a bit of a hole in the first half. 

No need to panic though, the appropriate response came when Scott (obviously fresh from watching UFC 100 on Saturday night) almost body slammed a F2B player. I held my breath as the ref pulled out a yellow (whew), but his ninja-like move set the tone and Billy, Pat, Cuyler and Crosley keep out most of the oncoming F2B attacks. It was high time CRU got back into the game. Scott threaded a nice thru-ball in to me in the 18 yard box, and although I got a touch on it towards goal just before the keeper clattered me – the ref failed to call a penalty. We continued to apply some pressure with Billy lofting more balls into the box, but we couldn’t get the breakthrough needed to get back a tying goal. 

At halftime, Luke supplied us with some needed vitamin C when he broke out the orange slices and we called up Cameron Road United halftime speech #345.2 – you know the one I’m talking about – “we just need to take more shots on goal.”

Well, that talk resounded especially solid with Bob, who played a solid game at center half, because he must have taken 5 blazing shots from distance in the first 20 minutes. In fact, CRU had so much of the ball inside the F2B box early in the second half that Luke was seen doing pilaties in his goal to pass the time. While Bob was busy taking shots from the outside, Billy moved forward from his right back position, popping off shots and dancing in the box like his last name was Nishigushi. Still, with all the pressure we piled upon them, we just couldn’t get the ball into the net. 

With only 2 minutes to go before the water break, Ciro (playing up front as one of the barbs on our “pitchfork” formation) played in a tasty cross from the left hand side to me as I headed toward goal in the six yard box. Luckily, I got there right before the keeper and was able to one-time it high into the roof of the net before going down in a heap. 1-1 CRU.

If we didn’t have to stop for a water break, I’m almost certain we would have put away the winner in the next couple of minutes, but after hydrating, F2B seemed to come back with a bit more fire in their bellies, and it was a back and forth affair to the finish. 

So on a hot day, with no subs and our third choice keeper, CRU survived an early goal to rise up once again to secure a point. 

Man-of-the-Match: Hard to argue that any man who volunteers to play keeper w/o gloves and brings the orange slices doesn’t deserve this award. Nice job Luke!

Honorable Mention: Any other day, Scott would have put this one up on his mantle. Having completed a freaking triathelon earlier in the day, he was pretty much everywhere on the field. Dude is the Terminator. 

Second Honorable Mention: On any other day that Luke didn’t play keeper and bring orange slices and Scott didn’t literally run around the entire field, Ryan Willis might have bagged this one. Continuing his play from the previous game, Willis was also everywhere on the field, dropping back from the forward spot to mop up on D and helping out Bob in the center of midfield. And, he did all of this while wearing some straight up Run DMC-era Adidas flat bottomed break dancing shoes.