GREEN MACHINE WINS MIRACLE GAME!

I have to admit when we went down 2 to 0 in the first quarter I thought "Well, lets just try not to get beat too bad." You see I'm coaching Braden's soccer team and we were in 6th place playing the first place, undefeated team. I told all the kids at practice earlier in the week we were playing the first place team, to build a little drama and fun.



But my downer mood changed when we had a ball get punched through by our center mid and our left mid planted it squarely into the back of the net. OK 2-1, the mood on the field began to change, and the Green Machine coach broke his pouty silence and got out of his chair. Momentum changed quickly in this game however and one of our players got a hand ball called against him in the goal box. He had been playing with his arms flopping around the whole game and he got an unlucky bounce into one of those wiggly targets. About 80% of these penalty kicks go in for a score, but this shot went over the top bar. Close call.



After some really hard back and forth by both teams, one of our forwards had the ball land right in front of him and he knew nothing else than to kick it towards the goal. It wasn't a hard kick but it was nice and high and went over the goalie’s head and into the net. Now this was a player that hadn't scored all year. You should have heard his mother screaming. And you should have seen the looks on the other team’s coaches' and spectators' faces when it was tied 2-2 at halftime. 2 points was the most any team had scored against them in an entire game.



The 3rd quarter we scored again so we were up 3-2. Should I go everyone on defense now and hold for the win or keep playing? I didn't have to consider this strategy long as the other team did a beautiful corner kick that landed right in front of our goal. All we had to do was kick it out of the box and play strong "D" the rest of the game. We must have had 7 swipes at the ball it was like it was invisible—it didn’t move, and since we couldn't kick it out of the box the other team kicked it in for a score. Tied again 3-3.



We had a player go down which ended up being a blessing in disguise. Our goalie had the flu all week and had trouble breathing so I had to take him out and juggle the line up. One of the players I switched did some amazing dribbling and got the ball to our right forward Braden Blackburn with 2 minutes left in the game. He came streaking down the right side, lost the ball, got it back, had players hanging on his back it seemed, bounced the ball against a defenders leg but it quickly rebounded into his dribbling path and BOOM he put into the left upper corner of the net for the winning goal. I've never heard a sideline cheer the way it did when that shot went in.



Everyone on the team played solid and gave it an amazing effort. Everyone. There were many other players and plays that aided in our dramatic win. It was a fun game to witness and it puts us in a good position to go to playoffs… I'll keep you posted.



Coach Cory