Welcome back...that is, back to what should have been our consistent way of playing. Unfortunately, this has not been the case for the majority of our season thus far. When we do what we are taught in training, we are very good and efficient, as we were last evening against Millsaps College. We won the game 3:0 and it was never in doubt. This is what we all had hoped would be the norm, rather than the exception. It was finally nice to see us playing our game of "possession" soccer for the majority of the game and controlling the entire tempo and flow of the game. We finally found a consistent Rhythm and it certainly made all the difference in our game.
We had worked very hard all week in preparation for this game by going back to our roots of "excellence through fundamentals". We did many shooting and movement off the ball drills and all these drills would show themselves throughout the game. The best part of this, was that we were able to recognize these runs and plays within the flow of the game. We led at halftime by the score of 1:0 on a goal by Nico Reitmeier with an assist from Sean Head. We stressed at halftime that we continue with our high pressure defense and possession game.
The 2nd half began and Millsaps switched to a 4-3-3 formation causing us a few minutes of losing the midfield, but the guys mad an adjustment and corrected what was happening and shut them down immediately, thus allowing us to gain control of the midfield once again. I was very proud of them for not only recognizing this, but making the adjustment to get us back in our rhythm. They are finally begining to get it. That is "Think" within the flow of the game! I believe we are making good progress at the moment and hopefully, it will continue for the remainder of the season. We scored 2 more goals in the 2nd half. Garner Shivers scored our 2nd goal, with an assist from Nico Reitmeier. Our 3rd goal was scored by Sean Head, with an assist from Brynjar Arnason.
Overall, we made a few line-up changes that we believed were necessary in order for us to get more offense in the game. I was particularly proud of them for making these adjustments and doing it with great determination and passion. If we continue to have another good week of training, I believe we will have a successful end to our season. That is our goal!
In closing, I would like to thank our loyal alumni who came to our game. These alumni are what our program is all about. It is about tradition, honor and loyalty and each of them have exemplied those values each and everyday they played here. The alum that traveled the furthest was Igor Ranitovic, who came all the way from San Francisco,CA. I was so happy and proud to have Igor here with us once again, as I was for all our alumni that came out to support "their program". Those in attendance that I saw, were Scott Berte, Doug Eckhardt, Trevor Cobb, Joseph Anthony, Sean Goldfarb, Martin Devaney, Scott Shelton, Matt Shuleva, Ross O'Malley, Luke Eldridge, Stephen Rumble and Hal Halbert. If I am forgetting anyone, I apologize, but those were who I saw. It is always great having our guys come back and only wish we had more in attendance. Maybe next year?
This coming week-end we travel to Conway, Arkansas to play Hendrix College on Friday evening and then travel down to Memphis, TN to play Rhodes College on Sunday afternoon. I hope we will see some of you at these games.
Have a great week, Coach G from BSC
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