Coach Duerksen talks about what it will take to win Sectionals tonight. A confident team takes the field at West Noble which seems to have become our home field for the last 6 days. Again dressed in away whites, the team is announced with the one customary mistake. Was it Eewamma on the first night, Durkskin on the second, on the third night it is Sebastian's turn when his name gets butchered into Gillen. One of the first points mentioned by coach Duerksen in the pregame talk focused on high pressure on Angola for the first 5 minutes of the game. The plan is to make them lose the ball to see if it will translate into some offensive opportunities for us. The execution is pretty good and in the 4th, a scramble in the Angola box sees the ball finding Cam who takes a great shot that barely misses the goal. The pressure results in an even better effort when Angola coughs up the ball in the middle third. Sebastian (NW's record all time assist leader) slips a very nicely weighted ball to Kayden on the left flank. Kayden who in very strong fashion keeps the defender behind him, takes the ball at the goal and shoots the ball past the goalkeeper for a 6th minute early lead. The Panthers keep the pressure up and in the 13th minute, a drop ball for Nick Lechlitner finds Andre who volleys the ball at the frame, on the re-direct, Sebastian slams the ball on the cross bar. Only 60 seconds later, the ball again ends up in the Hornets' box and Chan is the one who connects twice with the ball but the Angola keep stops it twice. For the next 15 minutes, Angola resorts to panic defending and does not seem to have a plan to work out of the back other then to find their fast #2 who always tries to connect with #9 (their leading goal scorer). In the 20" Kayden leaves two defenders behind and seems to repeat what he did 14 minutes earlier but his effort misses the goal to its right. Angola finally breaks thru when #2 combines with #9. It would be one of the rare times the #9 gets away from Nick (who seems to have a knack for denying #9's from any team from scoring) and takes a nice shot at the goal but Graber makes a nice dive to prevent the ball from crossing the line. Half time score is 0-1 even though it feels like we are in control, it is obviouly not a comfortable lead. And as Coach Duerksen says, it only takes a fluke goal to even things out. The second half has a different feel to it then the first one. Angola gets chippier and at times dirtier. They go into a lot of challenges without going for the ball but go for the man instead. Most of these fouls do not get called and as it has been throughout the entire tournament, the officiating is not horrible all the time but is just awful at times. Little consistency throughout the game. The first 20 minutes of the second half has Angola too much on the NW half. The Hornets are not the best team we have faced all year but they might be one of the scrappiest ones. They fight for every yard, go in hard and are not afraid to foul. With both teams getting some minor chances you start to rely on your big guns. A beatiful Sebastian assist to -who else- Andre ends up in the ropes when Andre NW's all time leading scorer) takes a very hard shot on frame. The keeper has no chance and can not even react to this blast, 0-2! Ten minutes later Andre gets fed another nice ball on the right side, his breakaway at the goal gets stopped by an Angola defender by fouling him from behind. This foul gets what it deserves; a red card! The Hornets are down to 10 men despite the effort from the bench to replace the send off player with a sub. The very annoying Angola bench who has been chattering all stinking night, finally shuts up for the last few minutes when they realize their chance of getting back into this match, is over. The Panthers rush the field as the final whistle is blown to celebrate their well deserved Sectional Championship in a record setting year. With the best season record so far, the most goals scored by a team and by a player, the most assists and Duerksen and Dijkstra's 200th win of their coaching career at NorthWood, this has been a great season so far. A team effort for sure and in the three games at West Noble, we have only given up one -lousy- goal to Lakeland of all teams. So our defense has been stinchy and stellar, our offense has scored when they needed to and we are on a nice little run with having won our last 4 and having lost only once (3-2 at Plymouth) in the last 11 games. We want to keep this going! NOTES - Thanks to Michianapromotions.com and froggy 102.7 for broadcasting the games online and on the radio. It is not as easy as you think, broadcasting games! Especially when you get confronted by Angola fans during the broadcast accusing you of things you didn't even do! But then again, not everyone can be a class act. We hope to see the broadcasting crew with Ron, Craig and Ryan on the sidelines in Mishawaka as well. Speaking of Mishawaka; we will play our next game at Mishawaka Marian against Hammond Clark. Hammond Clark's Sectional chanpionship game has already been watched by the coaching staff and it looks like we have players that are capable of creating chances against their defense. Our game vs. Hammond Clark will be at 1 pm Saturday. The Regional Championship is at 7 pm and will be between the winner of SB St. Joe-West Lafayette and the winner of NorthWood-Hammond Clark game.
No comments:
Post a Comment