Quake Rock, Roll & Rumble to a 2-0 1st Tehel Cup Victory

On what was about as perfect a day you can have for a match, our first ever Tehel Cup appearance saw OP Quake v. Crimson Fire FC. CF was the technical home team, but requested the match be moved to the Rock due to lack of their field availability. Fortunately, the Town of OP got their heads out of their a** and vastly improved the OPSC fields in the past week, so the pitch was in the best shape I have seen in two years.

As typical for a weekday Cup match both teams started a bit short, with Quake having 2 additional late inactives leading to a total of 14 ready for the game. Although CF began with only 11, they soon had a strong 17 bodies for the vast majority of the game. The first half kicked off in a manner exactly as planned for the Quake, as possession had to be near the 80-20 mark for the majority of the first 45 mins. A very rangy goalie for CF and lack of execution in the final 1/3 kept this game scoreless until the 33rd minute when a great passing sequence ended with a hustle play by J. Gilfert earning him an assist on a J. DeWindt tap in from inside the 6. CF had an interesting style as they pretty much held 2 or even 3 guys at midfield or the last defender the entire game and looked for long punts or through balls to lead to a counter. Unfortunately they really did not have the ability to fully breakdown the Quake defense, as anytime they did manage to get behind one Quake defender, another was there to clean house (The ball and the man). A first half completely dominated by possession numbers ended with a disappointing 1-0 lead for the Quake.

At this point I would assume CF felt good about their chances considering their 3 extra bodies and 1 goal down. The second half kicked off with the upstart D3 side playing exactly as such. CF really started the first 15 minutes pushing extremely hard up the middle of the field, nearly getting away with a handpass (Literally the guy batted it like a volleyball forward to a breaking striker) and getting called on a close offsides that may of saw a guy through on Eaton. Two other great opportunities towards the tail end of the 15-20 minute stretch in which CF really pressured the Quake, saw two different CF players get tracked down from behind by yours truly to get the ball deflected harmlessly off the endline. An emotional screaming outburst (again by yours truly) seemed to signal the end of the CF push, as from about the 65th minute on the Quake midfield found their legs again and possession again flipped heavily into the Quake favor. CF continued to push numbers high, getting one or two more marginal opportunities to equalize but Eaton never looked too stressed by any shot in his direction on this day. Continued misses by Quake strikers on point blank chances kept it interesting until the 80th minute, when a great play by J. Solomon to get a quick switch back to me near midfield allowed me to find J. Fisher up to his usual shenanigans streaking down the left sideline and making a fool of 2 defenders along the baseline before threading a rocket between their monster of a goalie's legs from a tight angle. This is a play Jordan and I have become accustom to making this winter and one you'll hear about a few more times this Summer no doubt.

After the 2-0 goal, the result was never in doubt, as the Quake cleaned everything up that crossed midfield and misfired on a couple chances to extend it to 3-0. The whistle blew after a minute or so of stoppage time, and the Quake secured their first Tehel Cup victory! Great effort by Crimson Fire FC, the game was played hard but clean. Shout out to the reffing crew for making the trip to OP and representing very well. Best crew we have had in a while.

Looking forward to the enormous challenge FC Yemen presents us in Round 2 on June 11th!

G: J. DeWindt, J. Fisher
A:, J. Gilfert, S. Fallon

MVP: S. Fallon

SO: A. Eaton (235th minute of clean sheet!)

That ref crew consisted of two Queenston players, so I'm not surprised by the fact that it was one of the best crews you've seen in awhile.

MVP of this reply message is gonna have to go to B. Rademaker.  Yours truly really put it all together there in that last sentence.  You'll be seeing more of this kind of verbiage as the summer progresses, I can promise you that.