NorthWood - Memorial 4-1 (2-0)

Temperatures in the 80's at the end of September, a Varsity NLC match up that has the potential for the second NLC win of the season and 7th overall and a shot at 500 for the JV.

FIRST HALF
A small crowd showed up for a big game. The introductions were outstanding once again with Conner BBBBBBBeckwith as the newest addition, somewhat reminiscent of the Kenny Beachy days. The start of the game was unfortunately a bit on the sloppy side with not many of the players having good touch. The first great moment of the game came in the 16th when a Ryan Lincoln pass found its way to Noodle who took one touch to control the ball and another to place it in the corner of the goal away from the keeper for the 1-0. The next good moment in the game came off a nice cross from the left from Eddie Salinas to Noodle who, with great composure and zip, headed the ball in the left side net for the 2-0 lead.
The 22nd minute needed a Kyle Dijkstra save to keep a 2 goal lead. The 39t and 40th saw two nice opportunities for Josh who in the first chance got a ball from Noodle from the right in the middle of the box but with his left missed to the right of the goal; in the next chance Josh received a pass off Lincoln's boot on the left side inside the box but missed to the left. Both runs however were real nice that deserved a better result.

HALF TIME
Besides some technical matters, the main topic was complacency.

SECOND HALF
The second act started like the first, sloppy plays, no runs and neither team looking too good. But a throw in from Collin in the 44th changed the way the game was looking to go. The ball went over the right defender and Taylor took the ball with him near the box and after a touch took a great shot with an unbelievable dip that hit the back of the ropes, 3-0!
Two minutes later, a Connor cross from the right to Noodle in the left side of the box was re-directed by Noodle by way of a header right in front of Lincoln. Lincoln takes the shot but misses to the keepers left. But the combination was a thing of beauty!
Since the crowd was quiet, very quiet considering it had been a while since the Panthers had won a NLC home game, coach Duerksen tried to get the crowd going but found out that the only response came from the trains' whistles. But we will take what we can get.
In the 68th minute of play, Lincoln received the ball in the middle cirkle. From that spot he passed a thru ball on the ground to Eddie who, after battling a defender, came away with the ball and went 1 on 1 with the keeper beating him with composure for the the 4-0 lead.Despite the promise from Jason that he would score the 5th goal, it was Memorial who with 10 minutes left to play, toyed with our defense on the left side and went to goal. Their #6 put the ball past our keeper for what turned out to be the final score 4-1.

NOTES
The JV did even better then Varsity and played to a 6-0 win with goals from Parker, Barahona, Kolton,Carter Beebe,Caleb and Flick. The JV is now a 500 ball club with a record of 5-5-1. Nice job. The JV has off this coming Thursday and will return to action against Concord on Saturday.

Both JV and Varsity have quite an array of goal scorers.

Varsity moves to 7-3 on the season.