Cataraqui Soccer Club

Cat II Sail After Very Fast Start

Teams often pressure themselves into trying to get out to fast starts against a temporarily undermanned side to no avail except increased frustration.  This was not the case for Cat II on June 19th against a 10 man (well 9 man, 1 woman) Limestone City FC II.  The blue shirts scored 2 within the first 3 minutes of the game and put out the sails to cruise to a 4-2 victory.

Both early goals were perfectly aimed into the left hand post from about 18 yards out.  Left-footed Roman Zablocki scored the first after some hard work down the left flank from Rob Lusink opened up the shooting lanes.  Less than a minute later, Luc Hempel made it 2-0 with a nice shot.

Soon after LCFC II were up to 11 players with a couple of subs and the game settled in with Cat II holding almost all of the play.  The starting midfield of Ted Bailey, Roman, Larry Hart and Rob kept up a high work rate and allowed the opposition very little time on the ball.

The Ernestown SS pitch suited Cat II’s game perfectly.  An abundance of grass with plenty of space allowed the squad to display its ball movement skills.  Post-game comments were that the team had not passed the ball around so well all season.  The monsoon rains that deluged 70 minutes of the game added to the fun!

Once again, Coach Stewart had plenty of men to choose from and the fullbacks of Mark LaPrise, Barry Cave, Paul Blais, John McGarry and Andrew Nader gave up little to concern ‘keeper Val Tomsens.  Despite this Big Val did have to come up large on a couple of occasions.  Val had to react quickly as John errantly flicked a corner that would have ended up just inside the post.  He was also very smart off his line on a through ball that skipped widely off the sopping turf late in the first half.

It wasn’t until about 60’ when LCFC II’s first through ball met a white shirt.  #11 made it in behind the fullbacks and calmly tucked a shot into the netting.  2-1.

Having not controlled most of the game to this point, LCFC II were sparked by the goal, but it didn’t take more than 5 minutes for the good guys to strike back.  Peter Jenkins lofted a wonderful corner into LCFC II’s tentative ‘keeper’s six yard box where Eddie Edwards nodded the ball down perfectly.  3-1

The Good Guys continued to put the pressure on – Brian Dodo, Peter Boyle Jr., Warren Tuddy and Dave Bakhurst added to the opposition’s frustrations with excellent ball work and placing many shots towards the net.  Luc was the last blue shirt to connect.  In the 80th minute, having forced the keeper out to the top corner of his 18, Luc calmly lobbed him and two LCFC defenders with a wonderful strike.  4-1.

For the second week in a row, Cat II gave up a late meaningless goal that has taken the team from being the ‘leanest’ in the division to being tied for the honour with Philthy McNasty’s.  4-2

Overall, an excellent result with full credit to referee Terry Bagnirol for playing on through threatening skies – that “one more” bit of lightening never did come.  This was much to the chagrin of LCFC II who saw abandoning the game as their only way out of a match against a superior side.  Well done boys!