Revolution 1 - Rampart 5

Well, I think we thought this was a 7pm start. Rampart jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead after a nice cross and even better header into the back of the net. Their second goal probably shouldn't have counted. There was a play on the far side of the field, right near the end line. The AR was way behind on the play, for some reason I can't even think of. The ball ended up going over the end line. Our two players stopped, along with our goalie, but there was no whistle. The Rampart player kept going, found a man making a run in, and put it into an empty net. Horrible no call, but good on Rampart to play to the whistle, 2-0. We got one back a few minutes later. I believe Nate crossed the ball into the box, Dave LaMastra had a nice little flick over to Glen Koeppel who finished it off. 2-1. Then the bounces really started going Rampart's way. Their next goal came off of a direct kick just outside of the box. They crossed it into the middle of the 18, and our keeper came off of his line to clear it. He got a good punch at the ball to clear it out. Unfortunately, he punched it directly off of a Rampart player who was standing in the right place at the right time. It drilled his knee and went screaming into our net. 3-1. Their fourth goal was just funny (and really annoying). Another cross into the center of our box. The players had to look directly into the sun to see the ball. The Rampart forward turned away from the ball, and kind of shrugged to get out of the way/he couldn't see anything because of the sun. The ball ends up hitting him in the back of the head and goes in. Just one of those days. We started playing much better in the second half, possessing the ball a bit more, but we couldn't capitalize on the few chances we had. We were caught pressing a bit later in the second half, which lead to an easy goal for Rampart, 5-1. We couldn't seem to catch a break, or a bounce in this game. However, that is not the reason we lost. Rampart was the better team, and they deserved the win. I know this gets said often, but I am going to say it anyway. The game was closer than the score indicated. Good luck to Rampart in the next round. And a huge thank you goes to the birthday boy Ryan Essenburg who supplied the team with beverages as well as pizza after the game. Made losing that much less painful. On to Sunday we go....