Game 9 Versus Babaganoutch
I woke up Sunday morning with horrible sinus pressure and a 9.3 on the Richter scale headache. Were allergies the cause? Was it a cold? Was it my old enemy, the Todd Mold?
The game was not until 11:50 against our chief rival, Babaganoutch. I felt so crappy that I was not sure that I was going to be able to play effectively. So I just laid around and whimpered all morning, bemoaning my fate, something I am really good at, and enjoy.
By game time, amazingly, I felt ok. Maybe it was the 18 Advil I swallowed or maybe it was the freakish 90 degree temperature outside, but by the time I got out to Pflugerville, I was feeling pretty good.
And I am glad that I felt ok because the game was super tough. Babaganoutch is the team in our division that seems to have all of the big dudes on it. They had big dudes up in the front, and big dudes in the back, and big dudes in the middle. Even their goalie was this big dude. Anyhow, I played right full-back and we had a heck of a time containing their attack...
They scored first, maybe in the 25th or 30th minute. Their center-forward type guy (who is kind of a big dude, but not that big) made a sweet turn to beat our sweeper and then went in to high gear and zoomed towards the goal and put in a fantastic far post strike.
I think this goal kind of shook our team up a bit, because in the second half we started to play a lot tougher, and by the 60th minute or so we managed to equalize...
The game swung back and forth for the next 20 minutes or so. We managed to have quite a few more chances on goal, but their goalie did a great job of frustrating our offense...
Then, something strange happened. I am not sure how, or why, but somehow I found myself right in front of the goal, running on to a sweet through-ball from our center-mid. I only needed only 2 more steps to strike the ball...
I could see a defender on my left, I had him clearly beat. I could see the goalie on my right, he was out of position to stop a left post strike...
I was one step away from the ball.
I stepped.
And then the world started spinning. I felt my self fly through the air like 7-Eleven coffee cup flung out the window of an 18 wheeler doing 70 down I-35.
I landed and rolled and rolled and rolled and rolled and rolled and rolled.
What happened? I have no idea. But everyone started yelling and the referee started blowing his whistle and our team was awarded a penalty-kick.
Mike our star forward took the kick and we held on to win the game 2-1.
So my 20 year scoreless drought continues. But each game I seem to get a step (or two) closer.
So with this win we maintain our number one position in the table, with 6 wins, 2 losses and 1 tie. The most amazing statistic is that in 9 games we have only allowed 5 goals.
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