Crimson SPAL FC 4 - FC Quake 3

Beautiful day, especially compared to the week prior. Between graduation and suspensions/injuries we only had 4 or 5 subs. Quake looked to have a few more. Nothing like walking up to the field and seeing your opponent putting out cones to do passing drills prior to the game. We did our usual kick the ball around and make fun of each other.

From seeing prior scores against Quake they seem to do poorly against younger, quicker teams. We went in with the game plan of allowing them to possess the ball and beat them with our speed on the counter. Worked pretty well. Quake had a great chance after our CB let the ball go under his foot but their striker completely whiffed on the ball in the 18, by himself. Our first goal came from Stryker who has been consistently great this whole year out running a defender, muscling another off the ball and sending a low cross over to Scott Barrett who tapped it in. 1-0. Maybe 8 minutes later Brendan Altman sent Stryker a through ball which he ran by the same guy and blew the ball past the goalie, upper 90. 2-0. Our third goal came on a great run by Alex Nemeth in his first game of the season. He is eventually fouled right outside the 18, to the right a bit. Stogner places a beautiful, powerful strike into the net. Goalie got his hand on it but there wasn't much he could have done.

Before the half, Quake received a PK. Our backup keeper, playing with football gloves saved a shot right at him. The team was buzzing. Quake scored right before half on a corner kick that went off four heads and into a post that we probably should have had with a guy on. 3-1 HT. Right before half time I went down with a knee injury and right after half time our only other outside back that actually is a defender went down with an ankle injury. Great recipe.

It couldn't have been even 5 minutes into the second half when Corben Hameister collected the ball from CB, dribbled up to about half, sent Nemeth in with a beautiful ball. I've never seen someone shoot a ball with so little power, from 25 feet out and walk away so sure it was going in. 4-1.

Quake ended up scoring 2 more goals in the dying minutes of the game. One off a breakdown in defense and another on a handball-PK in stoppage time. Quake had the majority of the possession but really struggled to produce anything in the final third. Both teams probably believed they should have scored a few more, I know we do.