NorthWood - #3 Warsaw 2-3 (2-1)

On a night that starts out on a sour note with a JV 0-13 loss, the Varsity shows a lot of promise with an unlucky loss to powerhouse Warsaw. Even the National Anthem CD was back in service, appropriately enough on 9/11. Too bad a chainsaw was humming along off key in the background.

NW SOCCER : Expansion on food row - the slushie mobile FIRST HALF It took Warsaw only seconds to threaten the NW defense but the first shot luckily finds the post acting as an extra Panther defender. NW plays a bit jittery but does get its first opportunity in the 4th with a Taylor pass to Clay who shoots at the goal but the last Tiger defender has no problems stopping it. A minute later, Taylor gets the ball up top from Clay and ends up eye to eye with the keeper and decidedly puts the ball away for the shocking 1-0 lead. Warsaw responds quickly with an attack a minute later. A hard clear on the ground out of the NW goal finds Dennyz Barahona's leg and bounces right back in the goal for an unfortunate own goal which ties the game. The rest of the half does see NW play pretty tough defense with some pretty attractive counter attacking soccer. One such counter attack, in the 36th minute, has Carter Beebe fight and recover a lost ball on the left side. He finds Tim Escoto in the right center of the field. Tim places the ball perfectly between two Tiger defenders right in front of a fast running Clayton Seitz who scores without hesitation, 2-1. In the 38th Kyle comes up with a very nice save to keep the lead going into the half. TEA TIME The coaches remind the team to watch marks, how to mark and defend and to be prepared for an attacking Warsaw. SECOND HALF Only three minutes into the second act, Kyle has to make a save to prevent Warsaw from putting their second one in. Warsaw possesses the ball quite a bit on the NW half of the field but the Panthers continue to do a nice job defending. Tim gets a yellow card that was intended for Clay after a tackle but a confused referee awards Tim with the caution (and apologizes to him after the game). In the 63rd, Tad fouls a Warsaw forward in the box and the ref points to the dot at the 12. Coach Dijkstra yells at the team to follow the pk. Diego Lopez takes the pk and Kyle (!) saves the PK but Lopez finds the net on the rebound, 2-2. In the 68th, Kyle has a great diving save on a Warsaw long distance shot. In the 71st, Warsaw gets around the NW defense and goes thru the box from East to West and from close range, finish a shot for the final score of 3-2. We were so close to a GREAT result against a high ranked team......oh so close. But we have to say that the team played well, executed the game plan well and saw some extraordianry hard work from some players (Taylor comes to mind)and some nice contributions from all players. Tad, Dyksen, Beebe and Dennyz kept the defense organized, Eusebio and Brandon took care of the central part of the defense, Tim, Parker and Clay did well in the middle and supported well in counter attacks as well as helping out their defense and I don't think Taylor had a bad touch all night. Kyle had a great game and kept us in it all night long.The guys coming off the bench (Brayton/David and Connor)did a great job, the level of play did not go down when they stepped inside the lines at all. So the way we played holds a lot of promise for the upcoming games which feature a lot of tough opponents starting with Goshen tomorrow night. See you at the High School for practice today boys!