WNY United 1, Celtic 1888 0

The Reds showed up with an army of nine subs this week, ready to take on a Celtic team fighting to stay up in D2.  Celtic seemed to do a better job today of dealing with the bouncing ball, settling and connecting passes, but we defended well with numbers behind the ball and were dangerous on the counter.  0-0 at the half.  Celtic decided to play a high line in the second half and it allowed us to get a couple good chances early but we didn't convert.  They had a pretty good spell of possession for a while but didn't generate many shots on net from it.  With about 10 minutes to go, Joey Gabor crossed from the wing, the defender was there first but Chris Duerr pressured it into a turnover, all alone against the keeper and finished past him.  We closed out the game from there.

Odd bit of trivia: though I've had a few ties here and there, this is the first time in 14 years in the BDSL that I've been on the winning side against a Celtic team.

We're pretty happy with our season, considering the modest expectations we had going in.  There's a good bit of pride in our group knowing how little our peers expected of us (most predicted us to finish last, heck one guy even said we should've taken voluntary demotion after last year), how we actually ended up, and how we earned some respect back on the field.  You don't realize it early but every year is going to throw some challenges at you, some problems for your team to solve and that will test your strength, it's a process and it's cool to see the guys respond and grow.