Roos FC 3 - Lakeside FC 0

Roos FC advances to the sweet 16 of the Tehel Cup with a comfortable 3-0 victory over Lakeside FC on a beautiful Thrusday night at Mulroy Park. We had Tommy G reffing so absolutely no issues there. Both teams had subs, we with 5-6 and Lakeside with 3-4 after two injuries to players. Onto the recap

Coming into this one I was a tad nervous as RFC leading scorer Alex Reid was sidelines with a groin problem and Sam Greco was watching Fallout Boy. Either way we knew we had to get off to a good start. From the first kick it was clear that RFC was going to be able to move the ball at will on Lakeside. I also think that LFC realized this and settled off into a defensive position hoping to get their forwards sprung on counters. Early, they maybe had the best chance as Tony Domenico got loose on the outside but scuttled his shot wide. After that it was all Roos. We held the ball for long spells and when we lost it, it was quickly earned back via a bad Lakeside pass or our constant harassment. Lakeside had little room on the ball and if not for some crafty moves from Marlette dropping into center they woulda had even less of it. Possession numbers were probably 75-25 in favor of RFC. Still with all our ball control Lakeside remained strong in the back with Bo Gurney making some clutch tackles and Calleri with some quality stops. But eventually our pressure was just too much. Ryan Ross was sent in on a nice ball and struck a hammer shot that opened the scoring in favor of RFC with his first career goal as a Roo. I figured that would be it but Lakeside continued to play some good defense and kept us off the score sheet the rest of the half. 1-0 Roos at the break.

In the second half we wanted more of the same and got it as the possession time was still controlled by us. But things off the field got a bit interesting. Not if you live in South Buffalo you know the neighborhood around Mulroy has drastically changed. Between Hopkins and South Park its become.... well not great. All the players were distracted by a fist fight between 10 years olds taking place in the park behind the field. RFC's Barrett, Bednasz and Nati along with the security guard for Mulroy went back there to try and end the fracas. Play kept going and Roos FC got their second goal when Bartosik intercepted a Calleri pass from goal and found Ross for a tap in for his brace. Before the ensuing kick off the security guard that was trying to break up the fight was now back on the sidelines of the field and being surrounded by maybe 15 10 to 14 years olds and 2 older scums claiming to be the parents of these child degenerates. The kids strolled onto the field and sorta surrounded the Guard so I went over to try and assist. Play was halted as the group of bums claimed the guard kick a child. The line "You cant poop in the middle of the park" was heard along with some threats to both the security guard and myself as we tried to diffuse the situation until the police arrived. I was embarrassed by the whole ordeal as I am a born and raised South Buffalonian and its horrible that these loser children acted this way. Eventually a cop arrived and our game resumed. 

Despite the break Roos picked back up were we left off and got back to controlling the game. Marlette did have one glorious chance at a goal with a break way and getting past Greg, but Ernst recovered nicely and Pete maybe took 1 too many touches before losing the ball. Other than that it was all RFC with Cole Beale having numerous close calls, Scott Schuler hitting a post and Ian Brown missing a sitter that we benched him for. Around the 75th minute or so a bouncing through ball that Ross chased down resulted in a big collision with him and a charging Calleri. Ross thankfully is ok but sat out the rest of the game. On the ensuing FK Mike Skrzypczyk hit a fantastic ball over the wall into the far post netting to make it 3-0. Really not much else in the affair after that aside from coach Phil Barrett making his long awaited return to BDSL soccer after tearing his ACL nearly a year ago. Roos FC with the comfortable 3-0 final. 

Lakeside is a good group of players and I has nothing but good things to say about them. Today was just not their day. Best of luck to them going forward. Looks like its a Roos FC Rangers game in the Sweet 16. Roos attention returns to league play now with a must win game on Sunday to stay in the playoff hunt. Our form of late has been really great and I hope it continues Sunday.

Pretty accurate recap.

A few injuries and players moving away from the area required some shuffling on our part – regardless, we felt as though we had (have) a squad that was (is) able to compete. We had players, we had subs, and we were looking forward to the game.

Possession was definitely in Roo’s favor. They were playing a very high line and at times seemed to be sending outside backs/ central midfielders into higher positions, which forced LFC to hang back more than we would have liked.

We had spells of nice possession and pressing, but Roo’s held the ball and used the width to spread us out, which opened up the middle throughout the game.

LFC’s main chances came from Marlette’s work through the middle and a few long balls that found Domenico’s feet up top. We had a couple of threatening chances, but couldn’t capitalize on them.

Like Mike said, the issues outside of the game were unfortunate. We were kind of unsure as to exactly what was going on at first, but after we saw a few haymakers getting thrown by kids no older than 11, we could tell it wasn’t a great scenario.

Seriously – if anyone knows that security guard, give me his name so I can buy that guy a beer (or ten). He seemed to really be trying to defuse the situation and put in a hard day’s work dealing with those kids/ parents.

In terms of the game, we felt we could have fought harder. We went into the game knowing that Roos had quality and we needed to really put in a shift, but we couldn’t find that extra gear. The result was a performance that we don’t want to dwell on.

Credit where credit is due – Roos played very well and made the game difficult. They have a good group of players that clearly know how to play well in a system with each other. The better team on the day won the game. I’m confident in saying they’ll do well in the cup.

Now, back to league play; Lakeside is in action against Yemen this weekend at Nichols (finally).

Again, congratulations to Roos – best of luck in the rest of the Cup.



Go Lakeside.