KUA falls to Dublin
We had twenty different players who saw significant playing time on Saturday, and my notes are filled with impressive plays: Mikey Winham knocking a long ball up to Striker Adi Lesbec; Adi making a perfect pass to the opposite corner to Jordan Garafat and getting a beautifully placed return pass in front of the net (sadly, Adi defied the laws of Geometry at that point and skied the ball over the crossbar); Aiden Bean controlling the midfield and directing the ball confidently towards the corners; Theo Korhonen coming back hard on defense twice and breaking up dangerous scoring opportunities; Lucas Mandel clearing the ball decisively; Michael Jung is a rock in the middle of the defensive line despite being fouled twice. All that happened in the opening 15 minutes. Later in the half Ryan McPhee was strong on defense while Anderson Coe and James Lee moved the ball well up the field, Carter Freund played a long ball up to Marek Girard whose resulting shot forced the Dublin keeper to dive for the ball, and Solomon Holton was a commanding presence in the midfield. The defense was successful for much of the half at only allowing long shots which Keeper Henry Steffen handled confidently, but Dublin earned a corner kick late in the half and scored right off the kick. In the second half, Matt Fussteig did an extraordinary job controlling the ball up the right side and had several good scoring opportunities. In recognition of his outstanding play, one Dublin defended slammed into him and knocked Matt to the ground and he jumped up and rejoined the play immediately. Lucas Mandel took a free kick from mid-field that went right on goal, and Yiyi She, Carter Freund, John Guillemot, and James Lee all moved the ball well.
The only errors in that first paragraph are ones of omission – there were many other outstanding plays during the course of what was a fast-paced well-played game by both teams, many by players whose names do not appear. Based on what I have written, it sounds as though the Wildcats might have won 3 – 1, but the reality is that we did everything we could except put the ball in the net (yes, Michael Jung did score on a well placed PK.) Dublin scored one goal in the second half when a wing played a perfect cross out of the deep corner and a forward in front of the net jumped up and headed the ball into the goal. That put us down by 3, a frustrating moment, but it was hard not to admire what a nice goal it was. The Wildcats will regroup and look to score some goals in their rematch at Brewster on Wednesday.
