Tonight was the Messiah/Etown conference championship game. They played in the regular season last week and Messiah won, but this time it was for the Commonwealth Championship. Etown came to play. Realistically their only chance to get into the national tournament was to win the match. Messiah was basically in from not having lost all season.
For much of the game it was scoreless. Both teams had chances, but neither could put the ball in the goal. Etown was definitely playing with more urgency. Messiah didn't look bad, but they didn't seem to care too much either. I was disappointed in this fact. With about 12 minutes to go, a Messiah player was mugged in the box giving us a penalty. The Etown goalie made a fantastic save, but alas the ball bounced off the goalie to be put away for the 1-nil lead.
All Messiah had to do was to just hold the lead for 12 minutes. They were doing fine until a corner came for Etown with under a minute left. As the corner went in, the Messiah goalie was mugged, but the foul was not called. In the same play, a Messiah defender hit the ball with his hand. It was deemed by the referee to be intentional. This caused two things. First the Messiah player got an automatic red card and secondly, Etown got a penalty shot. With 23 seconds left in the game, the score was tied up.
This was bad. Not only would we go to overtime, but Messiah would have to play with only 10 men. At this point I was hoping that Messiah would just hold on till penalty kicks came about. The OT period started and Messiah was just trying to keep pace with Etown. Being a man down was a real hindrance, but they played the vaunted 4-1-4 formation. Two and a half minutes into the period a Messiah player got free down the sideline and Etown did not react. The ball was sent to him and after a couple of quick moves across the box, he drained the ball into the net. MESSIAH HAD WON!!! Etown made their first huge defensive mistake and it cost them the game. Why they did, I will never understand. Anyway, the Messiah faithful exploded into cheering. The team was also very elated. For the next ten minutes or so the cheering didn't really cease for along.
A great game to watch although very nerve-racking. Thanks to Rover, Brechty, N, and SM for the wonderful company. We won!! It made me very happy.
1 comments:
I think it was that classic 4-1-4 formation that put them over the top. What a game! Messiah was lucky to pull it off after, what I felt was, a lackluster performance. But hey, a win is a win and I was glad to be there to see it. I'm also glad to be looking down the throat of two Thai dinners after Brechty went double or nothing on the bet!
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