Man, what a game!

It started a bit inauspiciously playing short-handed and with our goalie being late but once the whistle blew the kids went straight to business.

Five minutes into the game with the score 0-0 (but with our boys spending most of the time down by the opponent's goal) Kees shot into the goal only to be blocked by the hand of one of their defenders. He got a penalty shot but it was inches over the crossbar!

Our boys kept persisting, executing perfect passes and keeping the ball down in the opponent's end but every time they shot wide for some reason. I think the pressure of remaining undefeated was being felt by the boys. Our defense did a great job as well, as did our goalie who only had to defend the goal three times, and we entered the half tied.

0-0

We'd never entered a half without a goal, nor tied with any team so I had to get the kids fired up. They wanted to win this one and we talked about changes we had to make.

I rotated my goalie out the second half and put him at forward to give us some more size up front, and offensively the second half started just like the first half with our boys mostly down on the opponent's end of the field. The other team got a couple of good breakaways, though, catching our defenders off-guard but thankfully our new goalie pounced on their shots and cleared the ball immediately.

Kees got several shots but every one went wide. Finally, ten minutes into the second half Kees pulled his patented move... drawing the goalie to the left and then with his left foot shooting across to the right of the goalie for a goal!

1-0

Our kids had played a hard first half, and it was showing the second half. Several times the midfielders were left flat-footed when a ball shot by them, and our defenders were reacting too late to breakaways. Finally, the opponents beat both of our defensive zones and shot and scored.

1-1

Our offense was really struggling, putting a lot of weight on Kees' shoulders (and legs) so I swapped out right forward with a fresh player and within two minutes he slipped in between two opposing players and shot and scored!

2-1

With only five minutes left in the game and our defenders noticeably tired, I beefed up our defense by putting our starting goalie back in, setting the midfielders in defensive positions and required our forwards to cover more field. If we tied I was confident we'd win a shoot-off because we have the best goalie and best shooter in the league, but I'd much rather beat them on the field.

Finally, the whistle blew... we won, beat the only remaining undefeated team, and are the only undefeated team remaining!

2-1

Way to go boys!!!