SCOTLAND YARD NEWS: Adidas Tournament Report
Monday, September 10, 2007
Written by: Jason Stanley, Assistant Coach
We purposely scheduled a tough week for the boys and that is exactly what it ended up being for us. On Wednesday we traveled to Northwood, another Division II opponent, and found another side with quite a bit of size and a noticeably British style of play. Our play was up and down throughout most of the first half, but we found ourselves knotted at 0-0 with 10 minutes left in the half. Northwood proceeded to find the net three times before halftime on some costly errors on our part. Wanting to rest some players for the upcoming weekend and continue to develop our younger players, we started the second half with a completely new 11 with the exception of Dave Henson for the first 20 minutes. Several of the guys gained some valuable game experience and on the whole performed well against Northwood’s top 11 for much of the half.
We left Friday morning for Delaware, Ohio after a light training Thursday afternoon and an evening classroom tactical session. We certainly had our work cut out for us facing the likes of Capital University, ranked 16th in the nation, and perennial national power Ohio Wesleyan University, but eagerly awaited the opportunity to measure up against some of the best competition in the region. For me and Nate it was a homecoming that we had been looking forward to, Nate having grown up in Delaware and coached at Ohio Wesleyan, and me having played soccer and gone to school at OWU.
Friday evening’s match was tough to say the least. We matched up fairly well against Capital and definitely saw some improvements in our defensive organization. However, we still are not keeping the ball enough and giving it away far too easily. This ultimately led to goals for the opponent. There were some bright spots, including some strong individual play by Mark Daisy and Ryan Derby. Freshman Matt Bauhoff also did an excellent job off the bench filling in at center back for Dave Henson when Dave went down early in the second half with what appeared to be a severe knee injury. Everyone thought the worst had happened as Dave heard a “pop” in his knee when he went down. But, back in the training room, what Dave was quick to call a “small miracle” occurred as the trainer was able to “pop” something back into place, leaving Dave with only some slight soreness and relatively no worse for the wear. We hope to have him back at full strength later this week.
The skies turned dark right as we started warming up Saturday night and eventually opened up into a huge rain and lightning storm. The boys and I sought shelter out on the bus waiting for the storm to pass (which of course it didn’t) while Nate was meeting with officials and members of the OWU staff trying to determine the best course of action for getting the game in. Luckily, some brave members of the OWU game management staff brought us rations of brats, hot dogs, popcorn, and Gatorade at the bus while we waited to see what we were going to do about the game. As the storm showed no signs of letting up, we were able to make arrangements to stay another night and play the match on Sunday morning on a newly installed turf field at one of the local high schools. Undoubtedly there was chaos for a large part of the evening, but some quick thinking by Nate and opposing coach, Jay Martin, and unbelievable generosity from Ohio Wesleyan made rescheduling the game possible. I was thrilled that we would still be able to play as the experience would be invaluable for our guys.
The game itself did not go as we had hoped, but it was well worth the stay. It, hopefully, showed our guys exactly what they need to work on to “get to the next level”. While we were not able to achieve the success we wanted in terms of wins and losses, I would consider the trip as a whole a complete success. We had the opportunity to play two nationally ranked teams and measure up against the best in our region. Our team has made great strides in the last year and a half in their level of play and overall ability and, although the losses are tough, the only way we are going to continue to improve and lengthen those strides even farther is to continue playing the best teams that we possibly can.
Posted: Wed, September 12th, 2007 at 1:30PM
