Brutal weather ends with victory over Newport
JV2 Boys 6 – Newport 1
To all of those who missed Wednesday’s amazing game against Newport…….you were wise to stay away. Upon arrival at the field we were met with a constant, cold drizzle and gusty wind. Had it not been for the fact that we were on the turf and word had come down that the lights would be turned on to illuminate our stellar play, spirits might have been much darker than they were. As our uniforms became heavy and we began to acclimate to the chill, the sky grew darker; however, there was a sense of humorous bafflement at the fact that we were actually going to go through with the match. We realized that there was nothing to do but to battle on: excelsior!
The first minutes of the game were a bit sloppy, both teams worked to get used to the extra skip on the ball and the wind hazard. Henry Pletcher took the first shot of the day after four minutes, but Newport’s keeper skillfully saved it. Forty seconds later, Newport responded with a shot that surprised everyone by making a low skip and sneaking by Xavier Manning to put Newport up by one. This proved to be the only shot to get by Xavier all day.
For the next twenty minutes we saw drive after drive thwarted: Hayes Huwiler got up close to the net, but met an awaiting goal keeper; Vinnie Quattrocchi went one-on-one with the keeper and his tap went wide; Noah Ramos sent a cross to Sean Thomson that the keeper saved; Noah blasted one from outside the box but it is stropped. Finally, with fourteen minutes left, Henry Pletcher sent a pass up to Vinnie who got a second chance with the goalie. This time he calmly redirected his dribbled ball into the far corner of the net and the game was tied.
Meanwhile the backfield was just warming up (but only figuratively). Jay and Lee Cogan disrupted many Newport attempts to get close to our end; the combination of Jonah Silverman and Jeremy Sigl proved to be an impenetrable wall; Jacob Weiss and Rex Miller displayed determined tenacity in their single minded drive to upset the attacking strikers; and both Cameron Stowell and Sawyer Constantine had outstanding games as they too dashed the optimistic dreams of each Tiger attempt.
At 4:30, with just 9:57 left in the half, the lights overhead came on. We wanted desperately to believe that they were warming lights and that soon the chill would leave us. And although this hope was never realized, the added illumination did brighten our spirits and drove the boys on to impressive play.
In the thirty-fifth minute Henry Pletcher, happy to be back on the field after a cold break, sent a pass up to Sean who quickly returned the favor. Henry took advantage of his spot in front of the net and put in his first of the day. Three minutes later Henry headed the ball up to himself and then kicked a long loft up to Sean who went one-on-one with the keeper and put the Wildcats up by two.
The halftime break was a huddled mass under umbrellas as Coach Custer tried to warm the boys up with encouraging words. They did have an effect.
In the second we saw more excitement: Jeremy passed up to Khoi Pham who pressured the goal keeper and we got the corner; Nihat Alizade and Isaac Wang hustled, skidded, and jostled throughout the midfield; Robert Raymond sent a powerful shot from the top of the box that just went high; Myles Shepard pushed a pass up to Alex Cohen whose shot was stopped by the keeper; and Patrick Zhou made a nice save off what proved to be Newport’s third shot of the day.
With 17:46 left in the game, Henry got into the mix with five guys scrambling for the ball in the circle. He took control and, with a finesse shot, placed another ball in to score. By this time, a new game was being played on the sideline: up and down the bench (no one was sitting) I could hear the comical comparisons of “I can’t feel my……” as each member of the team tried to gain empathy from the others.
Kimball Union continued to put pressure on the Newport defense. Noah Ramos took the ball deep into the right wing corner and sent a pass into the middle where Henry Pletcher was waiting to earn his second Hat Trick of the season. Following this Newport was unwilling to give up. They got the ball down the field and behind our defense. It appeared that they were going to go head-to-head with Patrick, when out of nowhere “The Flash” appeared and ended the drive. Although from the sideline it looked like the DC Comic hero, in reality it was Lee Cogan travelling close to Mach Speed.
In the final minutes Coach put Rex Miller up as a midfielder and Rex excelled. After dribbling by three defensive players, to the raucous cheers from the bench, Rex sent a cross over to an awaiting Sawyer who blasted it into the net. Not to be undone, Jay Cogan then displayed his offensive skills and left his home in the backfield to checkout what it looked like up front. He drove a long pass to Alex Ussler who crashed the net, but the ball went just wide of its mark.
Despite the rain, the wind, the dropping temperature, it was a fun game. Newport too was howling as loudly as we were; never have I seen a more good-natured handshake line following a match. In our shared misery we took joy from our common experience.
This Saturday the JV2 boys will meet Dublin School at home for our first contest of the season.
