FC Quake 1:0 Honey Badgers

I will start off by thanking Honey Badgers, the league and refs by allowing us to move this match to Saturday as it sounded like both sides would not have been able to field 11 on Sunday. Saturday evening almost felt like a fall match due to the weather. After waiting for the conclusion of the high school girls lacrosse game we strolled out onto the pitch. FCQ came with 6 subs and HB had 11 they were going to roll with.

First half kicked off with a bit of a feel out period, as HB were playing in their first match of the year and we didn't have much intel on the newly promoted side. HB hung some attackers high but were stout on defense all match. They took their chances smartly instead of a kick and run approach they possessed the ball neatly to start off. A few runs down the flanks for HB had our backline feeling slight pressure to start out but cleared any danger that would have came. FCQ had the better looks though and their keeper handled everything thrown at him with ease. Around the mid point of the half HB had their best opportunity of the match arguably as they sent what I think was their outside mid down the right side and he beat everyone but the post. The ball curled and knuckled luckily for me it found the post and bounced right back to me. FCQ possessed HB in the first something along the lines of 65-35. HB was playing more in a shell throughout the match and taking their strides at timely situations, very smart side. Half rolled in with a 0:0 scoreline and our scoring woes continued.

Second half started off much of the same but something felt different about our build ups, you could just feel a goal was finally going to come. Around the 55' mark the feeling came to light. Ingraham danced on the line got loose and sent a low cross to the top of the 6 (around there) Mammoliti made no mistake with this ball as he found the side netting. After this you could just see the weight come off his shoulders. The rest of the second half was controlled much by FCQ, HB had some nice runs but never amounted to anything. As the minutes ran down, so did HB's attackers they would make a run and then clench their legs as you could tell they were giving everything but tired legs were prevailing. HB with around 10' to had an opportunity to steal a point as they sent a guy through with a nice crisp on the foot pass which found him 1v1 with me, luckily he tapped it just a hair to much which allowed me to slide in and kick it away from danger. That play found HB with their heads hanging and looking for the final whistle. The second half possession was roughly 70-30. The final whistle blew and we secured our first 3 points into the new campaign.

Honey Badgers are a smart side, they didn't force anything. With no subs their gameplanning almost panned out for them defend first and build up from the sides when able too. No doubt in my mind that Honey Badgers will be right with the playoff sides this year. I was impressed with a few of their guys throughout the match and props to their keeper as he had made some great saves, and kept them in the match all night. We now turn our focus to Thursday at Mulroy vs RVS United for the "Play-In" match for the Tehel Cup.