Country Road, Take Me Home

Saturday marked the end of Coach Custer’s and my sixteenth season of coaching JV soccer together.  We have guided and cheered on our teams through 209 games.  And after all those games, we have met defeat 80 times.  Each one of those losses was painful, and we had no control over the end of the match…until this Saturday.

Within minutes into the first half, we had shots on the net.  Michael Jung sent a sweet pass up to James Lee, but his ball went wild. Mikey Winham hurled one of his tremendous throw-ins to an attacking Michael, and his header was saved.  Then, after seventeen minutes spent, Marek Girard got control of the ball in the box; he shot, the ball was deflected, and a melee began.  Eventually, he sent the ball past the keeper.  Four minutes later, Matt Fussteig sent a pass up to James, and he sent a hard shot to the far post.  We were up by two.

We dominated most of the first thirty minutes, though Henry Steffen did have to work and made some nice saves.  Then, in the 27th minute, John Guillemot was taken down by the goalkeeper, and he had to sit out the rest of the game, leaving a considerable gap to fill.  Ryan McPhee stood in and displayed some fine passing.  In the backfield, Eric Chung, Yiyi She, Cho Mann Bian, Theo Korhonen, and Bryson Tucker shut down many attempts to get close to our net. 

Sebastian Keen had a tremendous Direct Kick that the keeper had to hustle to save.

Then, with fewer than five minutes left in the half, we made a mental mistake that allowed the Huskies to get behind us and race one-on-one with Henry before finessing the ball in.  Two minutes later, New Hampton earned a Direct Kick just outside the box.  Henry was able to deflect it, but a crashing striker was feet away from him and easily tapped in to tie things up.

Those two goals were enough to get New Hampton fired up. In the second half, they maintained control of the ball much more than they had in the first.  Six minutes in, and they earned a DK just outside the box. 
They sent the ball to the far top corner and pulled ahead.  Ten minutes later, on a Corner Kick, they headed in a fourth.  Six minutes after that, they got in close and scored again off a deflection.  With twenty minutes left to play, we were down by three goals.

Up to this point, I had held my voice through inconsistent refereeing by one individual.  But, when another offside was not called, a tackle was not punished, and a hand ball was allowed, I finally disagreed with his officiating.  He didn’t like my opinion and so offered me a yellow card.  I accepted it.  It was my first in 26 years of coaching.  

Two minutes later, as James was moving the ball toward the net, he was viciously hit by two defenders inside the box.  He deftly sent the ball to the far post.  Three minutes later, Harry Hutton passed the ball up to James, and he again sent the ball to the post to earn him a hat trick.

Then things turned ugly.  Several players had to hobble off the field, injured.  New Hampton earned a direct kick, got behind our defenders and ran another one-on-one with Henry.  It was 4-6.  A minute later, Matt takes the ball up the middle and sends it to the far post.  5-6.

With only a few minutes left in the game, Michael and James were both taken down again, along with a New Hampton player earning us a direct kick.  Three boys were lying on the field, and as the coaches went to tend to them, the ref ignored them and gave a yellow card to a player who was not involved in the last play, a yellow card for language.  That was the last straw for Coach Custer and me.  If players were going to be allowed to get injured, we would rather accept the defeat.  So, after 208 games together, we did something we had never done before.  We went over the New Hampton coaches, shook their hands, and called the game ourselves.  Swapping more injuries for a possible victory was not worth it to us. 

Although it was not how we wanted our season to end, we were invited up to the New Hampton tent for some tasty food, and we enjoyed a little sing-along on our drive home.  It had been an enjoyable season with these boys, and we hope to see many of them out for soccer again next year!