PSATs Take Their Toll
I’m going to blame it on the PSATs. There ought to be a federal law forbidding sports competitions on afternoons following the PSATs, SATs, or ACTs. Why? Because our kids pour all of their mental strength into completing these tests, so by the time they shamble onto the field they are the equivalent of the Walking Dead – all shuffle and no brains. Now you might counter-argue that all high school students took the test yesterday and so we were all in the same boat, and you would be correct. And, since this is correct, you might argue that I have nothing to complain about. However, we weren’t playing another high school yesterday. We were playing Cardigan, and their oldest student is still a year or two away from taking any of these tests. I claim we were at a mental disadvantage!
CMS has a very talented team. They deserved the win. However, if I comment solely on how we performed yesterday, I don’t think we played our smartest game. We hustled and moved the ball well overall. John Erwin sent multiple passes into the middle to Cam Plume, Trong Pham, Jonathan Li, and Kohki Shinohara, but we headed or shot the ball to the keeper or wide every time. Even with our tough defensive line of Cody Nguyen, Alisdair MacPhail, Will Haynes, Brian Lee, and Nick Wilder, occasionally balls got through and an active Max van Dijk had to scoop them up and kick them out. At midfield Amir Lesbek, Evan Carndlemire, and Tom Huang each moved the ball well and took shots, and Bridger Close fought well in the middle throughout the entire game. Overall, we outshot Cardigan, but we couldn’t get the ball passed their talented goalkeeper.
As with earlier games, we let the ball in within the first five minutes. This goal was so uneventful that no one cheered for a few seconds because no one was sure it had actually entered the net. It had. And to quote Coach: “It doesn’t have to be pretty; it just has to cross the line.” It crossed the line and CMS had an early lead. We kept it at one until the last ten minutes or so of the game. Then Cardigan put in two that were at least pretty (both from the top of the box: one looped over Max’s head, and the other crossed into the top corner), but both came as a result of odd lapses in judgment. Lapses which were uncharacteristic of our boys.
We do play Cardigan again, and while they very well may triumph again, I do hope in that game our boys can rally and put forth the same determined, focused effort they have done in the past.
Saturday, we travel down to Eaglebrook for a 2:30 match.
