Wildcat Victory Over Cushing Decided by One Goal

   This Saturday we piled onto a bus with the Varsity boys and traveled the two hours south to Cushing Academy. The sun was out and there was a slight breeze blowing, making it a beautiful day for soccer. As we crossed the campus and found our field, I had a sudden flashback to the fall of 1982 when I was playing for KUA. We had competed on the same field and not much had changed in all those years. I remembered it as a hot afternoon and the contest had been rough and ferocious. Although we won the match, I hoped that not all of the history would repeat itself.

 

   The game began with the routine of a tennis match. John Ewing sent in a direct kick that just caught the top crossbar and Cushing was able to bring it deep into our end before Will Haynes and Nick Wilder cleared it back up to Trong Pham. He sent a long pass an attacking John, but the keeper saved it. His punt brought the penguins back in close, but the shot went high. Jonathan Li recovered the ball and sent a pass to Cam Plume who headed a shot into the keeper's gloves. Cushing attacked again but Kohbi Shinohara got in close and stole the ball. Then Cody Nguyen sent a well-placed direct kick up to Bridger Close whose blast was deflected out by the keeper. This back and forth continued throughout the whole first half, pausing only for fouls, yellow cards, and injuries. Sam Lower who has the luck of Job, played a great four minutes in front of his parents before being tackled and sustaining a new injury. Unfortunately, he was out for the rest of the game. With just under four minutes something happened that neither Coach Custer nor I had ever seen before. The Cushing coach called for a time out. We didn't know that this was a thing in soccer. We took advantage of it but resented the break in the flow of the game.

 

   At the half, the score remained zero to zero. We knew that with the even level of play that it would be extremely important to get on the boards first. The boys agreed. So, within the first minute back on the field, Trong threw a toss, up to Cam on the side. Cam trapped it under control, deked one fullback, shot, and earned his first goal of the year. We were up by one and the game got even more intense. While Tom Huang, Amir Lesbek, and Evan Crandlemire, worked the ball up from the middle of the field to create shooting opportunities. Brian Lee and Alisdair MacPhail worked incredibly hard with Will and Nick to keep the ball away from Max van Dijk and the net. We kept the pressure on with our shots and Max kept busy with saves – once making an outstanding sliding save to shut down what looked like a sure goal.

 

   At the final whistle, the game was decided by only one goal.

 

   So, as it turned out, the field and the competition remained just as I remembered it. Though I wouldn't say that we played our best game of the season, we did see good hustle and continued improvement in our skills. We will certainly need both on Wednesday when we face off at home against a reportedly very strong NMH team.