DRAW: CRU 2 – Chopped Livers 2

After a flurry of weather-related late-night texts from The Thread featuring Troy Kimmel, Mark Muray, Quita Culpepper, Jim Spencer and Burton Fitzsimmons, the league decided to actually play a game after a brief Saturday night downpour. And what a glorious sight to behold greeted the Honey Badgers as Onion Creek had been transformed into a lush, magnificent green carpet of bunion-friendly soft grass. Perfect for gathering up errant over-40 passes.

When the dust settled on all pre-game travel, CRU had 3 subs next to the tent, which somehow didn’t make it out of its giant sheath. With Gianluca out-of-pocket, the troops jostled for the 2nd position up top, but Sir Parks took the honors for the first shift next to Derek.

The game started off nicely for Cameron Road with plenty of passes and possession. Good things were happening, but then Chopped Liverpool were on the attack. One of their players won the ball back by shoving Ciro to the turf, but with no foul given the attack was allowed to continue and a shot rifled past Jay to give them an early lead.

No worries, as Jaybone reappeared to make several key saves in the next 30 minutes as the defense did a good job of keeping the mounting Liverpool attacks at bay.

At the other end of the pitch, the Honey Badgers were finding some joy and sending in shots, which usually were aimed right at the keeper. Derek had to bust out his protractor with one attempt as he skipped down the byline and almost scored from an impossible angle to the back post.

There were other “on brand” things happening to keep the game interesting. Chappy didn’t kick the ball into his own face again, but Peterson did manage to bounce one off Adam’s dome on a throw in. Speaking of Adam, he was getting into great positions inside the box with Ciro feeding him and came close on a few occasions.

Ciro also got his yearly corner kick clearance at the back post with a tiny header to save Jay from danger.

The Honey Badgers ended the half with some good one-touch passing down the left to have the Honey Badgers feeling good walking into halftime.

Oranges.

The second half couldn’t have started off any better. Within five minutes, Derek had stolen the ball back, darted between a defender and the keeper, and slotted home the tying goal. Just what the doctor ordered. 1-1.

For 25 minutes, the two teams were pretty evenly matched as they each looked for a winner. Schwarzy was the lynchpin in the center of the park, but he was getting roughed up every time he received the ball. Yunir was doing his usual good work at keeping the ball, and earning free kicks.

At the back, the defense was heating up. Chris G chased down an attacker from one side of the pitch to the other as Jefe slowed him up just enough for Chris to win the ball back. But it came at the cost of a tweaked hamstring as he exited the game. Fingers crossed it heals enough for next week!

Big Dave uncorked his famous slide tackle several times with some clutch clearances, and Billy may have had the defensive play of the day as he skimmed a header away from danger off a Liverpool corner kick.

But for all that hard work, Liverpool snuck in a second as their star forward blasted a shot from distance to put them up 2-1.

With plenty of time to go back to work, Cameron Road went goal hunting. Ciro had a nice cross to the Bald Dome of Power at the back post, but the shot was off the mark. The Liverpool keeper kicked a goal-kick right at Yunir, who would have had a clear shot at goal, but the referee claimed his low trap of the ball included some tiny palms. Yunir was hot at the accusation, and his screams of disapproval were heard deep in the tree line. But he recovered his composure and CRU got back to business.

As the pressure was mounting, Chopped Liverpool were getting heated up, mostly because their keeper wouldn’t shut up the entire game and was constantly yelling at his players. Imagine that, a game where a team was yelling at each other…. and it wasn’t Cameron Road!

Looking like another close loss was on the cards with minutes to play, the Honey Badgers mounted another attack with Ciro getting the ball down to Derek on the right side of the box. With the keeper concentrating on the immediate threat, Chappy posted up at the far post with an open goal begging to be slammed shut. Chappy screamed “SQUARE, SQUARE!!” and Derek heeded the call, slipped the ball across the 6 yard box, and the bunion tapped it in for the tying goal. A goal born straight out of a Wednesday night practice.

With a win and a draw the past two games, Cameron Road is poised to have a break out performance next Sunday and win their trophy back from the Punters. It will be must see TV!!

Man-of-the-Match: A goal and an assist for Derek.

Post-Game-Report: The Honey Badgers basked in the glow of a good performance and were treated to a Premier League game featuring a bunch of young, fit dudes who ran too much, and didn’t yell at each other enough. Jaybone kept a close eye on the Strait of Hormuz (It’s OPEN…. It’s CLOSED… it’s back OPEN). Pretty sweet little Sunday.