Spring Season Re-Cap

So here we go, round 2 of the 91st Minute and not a moment too soon (I like to leave the fans wanting a little bit). May I warn you, this installment is not for the feint of heart…one word, verbose! I mean, wait until you see the verbosity of this edition…the verboseness with which I flow is aggressive…please, I urge you to notice how verbosely I scribe….

First item of Business, font check!

It was made clear to me, that our first edition had some font challenges for the visually impaired. So, cover your left eye and tell me the lowest line you can read:

G
E T
Y O U R
V I S I O N
c h e c k e d n o w

Ha, kidding…

Ok, is it better 1 or better 2…better 1…better 2… is it just bolder or is it clearer? Still kidding, don’t you just love the eye doctor!?! Which reminds me, I need to go for my yearly visit…I think I am ready for lasik! So I have heard from a number of you (my mom included), that apparently I need to use a bigger font size! How is this one?

Ha, kidding again! Seriously though, I will use the 13 font in Lucida Bright (our official font here at Drexel University Athletics!). We finished up our spring game segment and will be doing our eight hours of work (lifting, fitness, and a bit of soccer) through the end of May. The guys have had a bit of “soccer daylight savings time” kick-in, as they have recouped another half hour of sleep due to our limited training hours the rest of the way. 6:30 am start time instead of 6:00, so it is light out now when we get started!

Figured it would be good to do a bit of a re-cap of the spring games to fill everyone in on how our time is going during the transition period.

April 3rd v. Lafayette (Vidas Complex):

Our first time out and first time coaching the group against an outside opponent, so there were lots of new things to get used to. From warm-up to pre-game to half-time to during game to post-game. We all have our own ways of doing things and part of the process is learning how we plan to operate as a coaching staff.

The game against the Leopards was a bit of give and take—both teams having their share of the play throughout the contest. We struck first, a bit against the run of play I will say, on a solid Joe Sales finish. Andrew Goldberg slid a nice little slip pass through to Sales who did well to get round the Lafayette keeper and slot the ball home.

The down side was we conceded shortly after taking the lead. The Easton Assassins (Larry Holmes nickname for those boxing enthusiasts out there), hit us with a bit of a jab, scoring out of a goalkeeper punt. A bit of a miscue on our part defensively at midfield in terms of the challenge and cover from the punt that led to one of their players getting put through off a flick. No cover and the 1 v. 1 left Tres Heffron out to dry a bit in goal. It was a fast paced game for the entire first stanza and needed someone to put a foot on the ball in order to settle the game.

A little re-organization at the half (no changes to the team, but a re-focusing of what we wanted to accomplish). I thought the soccer from both an attacking and defending standpoint was better in the second, but nothing to show for it in the end. 1-1 the game finished and both teams left wanting.

April 10th v. Lehigh (Bethlehem, PA):

Road Trip! For a Northerner that became a Southerner that moved back to the North (that’s me by the way), it’s tough to get used to civilization again…I’ve been in the “country” for 10 years, checking out pick-ups, listening to Alan Jackson with a piece of straw in my mouth riding my John Deere tractor (kidding, but I am a closet Alan Jackson fan…oh, and I do have a John Deere…so apparently I am not kidding…).

So I was behind the wheel of the lead van and had to shoulder the load of leading us to the Lehigh Valley to take on another Patriot league opponent in the Mountain Hawks. Let’s just say that it was a struggle getting off the Schuylkill (a.k.a. the worst road in America) onto the Blue Route when you aren’t paying attention…not quite Chevy Chase ala Vacation, “look kids Big Ben, Parliament,” but needless to say it was a ‘delayed’ departure.

We start well and have both a ton of possession and plenty of opportunity in front of goal. We did well to instigate the game and play in Lehigh’s half. Combined well in possession, got numbers forward, and dealt with the space behind our backline well. We caused Lehigh’s goalkeeper to make a few saves and their team to respond by clearing a couple off their goal-line. All you would want to do…what we didn’t have at the half was anything to show for our work.

It’s one thing to play well and it’s another to keep the end result in mind. The second half we definitely took our foot off the gas and were content to be ‘playing well.’ That being said, Lehigh seized a lot more of the play and did well to disrupt our rhythm. A fantastic 1 v 1 save by Tim Washam kept our opponent at bay and highlighted the second. While we again had our moments in front of goal, we could not finish.

The game ended 0-0. A tale of two halves, the first going to us and the second I believe going to Lehigh. Another tie… There is an old saying that allegedly, a tie is like kissing your sister (I have no idea what this means…I mean I guess a kiss is a good thing, but kissing your sister??? Come on, that can’t be good…).

Oh the ride home, far less eventful than the ride up…aside from the absolute domination I displayed on the ‘radio game’ in the van. That’s the game when you just flip station to station and you have to name the song and/or artist first…22-1 over my trusty shot-gun, Max Crockett—I was in a zone, I felt the music (he recently paid me back with an absolute shellacking in squash…thanks for the lesson Max).

April 16th v. Villanova (Vidas Complex):

The ‘Nova game was an interesting study in sport psychology in my mind…interesting enough, our resident sports psychologist Cristina Fink was on hand to take in the evenings events.

We started the game extremely complacent, almost wanting to see what our opponent was all about before trying to establish ourselves in the game. As a result, down 2-0 just 15 minutes into the game (they say 2-0 is the worst score in soccer…I love being up 2-0…). To go down so quickly is a shot to the psyche, but the simple fact was we pulled a goal back before the half on great back post run and volley from Eric Lynch.

I watched the team leave the field for the locker room for our half-time talk and noticed an interesting phenomenon…zero interaction! The fact that we weren’t communicating as we left the field told me one of two things, either we felt the game was already lost or we just didn’t care. Looking at the guys as I chatted with them in the locker room it seemed to be more the former than the later of the possibilities. It didn’t make sense, there was 45 minutes left to play and we were just a goal behind. I challenged them and we took the field.

We conceded right away…bummer. But, I was proud that after going down 4-1 we did not quit on the game. As a matter of fact, the guys threw a bit more caution to the wind and wanted to show that they were capable of scoring again. A rush forward followed by staying with the game after a broken play found Lynchie sniffing out his second goal on the night. A loss, 4-2, but a positive to build on by scoring the last goal.

April 23rd v. Temple (Vidas Complex):

A cross-city border game that went Big Willie-style (a little Fresh Prince reference…the first of many I am sure over time with my new home here in West Philly). If you were at the game you would have seen a competitive, hard-fought spring game (we got Jiggy Wit it…) that no doubt, both teams wanted to win. It was a battle and I was proud of the way our team held their composure (not so much for their coach…a bit of the redness came out).

Back and forth through the first half with missed chances and opportunities for both sides. The Owls managed the first score off a solid header at the near on a corner relatively early in the second half. The great thing that came from that, we responded!

A heady, quick throw-in from Max Crockett that found Andrew Goldberg. ‘G’ ran at their backline and then took the end-line. He drove the ball hard at the near post space for Nate Baker—funny how you get rewarded for making the decision to run to the near post more often than not. Bakes ran hard at the near, got clobbered by a couple of their defenders, but managed to score a great goal—it just goes to show that sometimes you have to sacrifice a bit of bodily harm in order to score a goal. The guys fed off the goal and were pressing for the go ahead goal until….the lights went out! Literally the lights went out, the timer went off and as a result the game was abandoned with about 5 minutes to play. The result, 1-1…yet another draw!!!

May 2nd v. York and Stevens Tech (Vidas Complex):

The last weekend of play and two perennial Division III Top 15 teams. Games were shortened to sixty minutes and teams were forced to play a bit smarter on the day as it felt like a summer heat wave out at Vidas…the turf was literally hot enough to fry an egg (I actually thought about ringing Dottie up at Handschumacher and getting her out there to do post-game omelets!).

The day had its ups and downs for us again, sometimes soccer…sometimes it looked like the inside of an omelet, stuff everywhere! Nonetheless, the guys managed a result against York 1-0 off a goal from Anthony Bafile that developed down the right side through Nate Baker.

We settled for a tie with Stevens (something new, another draw!), 1-1, in the last game. It was us who played from behind and grabbed the leveler off a Nate Page attack down their right side. Goldberg made a heavy run to the near drawing a lot of pressure to that area of the goal box, and Nate delivered a heavy service to the near…an own goal! While we didn’t score it ourselves, I do believe we created it and caused enough problems that our opponent couldn’t deal with it.

It was a great way to end as we have tried all spring to get across the concept of making defenders face their own goal to defend, particularly when close to their goal. If you can turn the defenders, you can cause problems and the combination of Nate taking the end-line and G running heavy to the near post caused just that.

So now we are left with 8 hour weeks of training for the rest of May. We are still in the process of getting to know one another…me them and them me. There was a definite theme from our spring games of a step forward followed by a step back, followed by two steps forward and 3 back…or in the wise words of MC Skat Kat and Paula Abdul, ‘I take two steps forward, you take two steps back, we come together ‘cause opposites attract…’ It is sad, yes I know, that somehow I remember that song, lyrics and the artists but what can I say, I dominate the radio game!

Thanks for reading,
Doug