Dads, game notes: (A little late as I didn't hit the publish button on Saturday night and it just saved as a draft)
Zach didn't know it but Grandma was coming to watch today. As we walked over to the field from the parking lot I could see the teams were ready to go at the center line. The ball kicked off like any other game. We were still 50 yards from the field, now right behind the JV net. Brooks had an early corner and the ball was played in. All of a sudden I see a shot from right in front and the ball rockets to the top corner of the Groton net!! Who Scored it? Not sure, oh wait...Zach running to the corner flag screaming YEAHHHHH (or whatever he was saying)!!! Teammates surround him...cool, I guess Zach scored it 45 or so seconds into the game. Grandma, not even seated yet, got a thrill!!
The game settled in a bit, with Brooks looking very good in the ball control area. Lots of great combination play from the green kept the Groton keeper pretty busy. Shots were zipping just wide. Greg got his head on another corner and it went just over the net. Zach trying a little to hard, lost the ball inside the 18 a couple of times after being mobbed by 4 defenders. A little chirp from Dylan at Zach about giving it up must have made sense. Zach made a few great passes to Alex, his new striker partner but nothing materialized. Strong Brooks play continued with an occasional run by Groton. This team has a tendency to hang around and end up tying games. Luckily, Sam took a nice pass from Brian and deposited the ball with another good shot. It was 2-0.
After that, Groton stepped it up a bit, only to see Sam take a hard low shot right off the post to the keepers left. He thought it was in. EVERYONE thought it was in; except the referee of course. Lots of chatter at the referee resulted. The ball ended up on the sideline for a Brooks throw in and Alex must have said something. The linesman was wildly waving his flag to get the referees attention. After a short discussion, Alex was given a yellow card and sent to the sideline. Not sure what he said, but it must have been good!!
After half, Alex remained on the bench. Play was being dominated by Brooks, but Groton would make the occasional run up the field and on a few of those Mattie had to make a couple of really difficult saves. On one, he flew almost up to the cross bar and snatched it just before it went in the net. Now this was great because Mattie is the new sophomore starting keeper and stands all of 4'11". Maybe he's 5'. On the next run up the field, Zach took a long ball down at center, played it over the defender, took the long but speedy route around the defender to collect the ball near the corner and then drove right across the top of the 6 yard box. I'm watching thinking what the heck is he doing????? Well he knew what he was doing. He continued across the front of the net to the far post and then rolled the ball into the net after leaving the keeper behind about halfway across. Nice goal! Crowd cheered!! Grandma yelling all the way across the net for Zach to shoot!! 3-0 Brooks.
There was still about 25 minutes left, but the game was about over at that point. Mattie stayed in for another 10 minutes and then many of the starters were pulled to allow the younger guys some playing time. Zach, Sam and Greg remained in almost to the end. Groton had a few more chances, but in the end they had a 0 on the board.
Brooks finally looked good. Hopefully it wasn't due to a weak Groton team. Grandma was happy!! On to Thayer on Wednesday. Another team that Brooks has had some trouble with in the past. Go Brooks!!
No comments:
Post a Comment