SCOTLAND YARD NEWS: Hope College Week
Monday, October 08, 2007
Written by: Jason Stanley, Assistant Coach
We had a “play-up” game on Thursday after our loss to Olivet on Wednesday to see if there were any changes to make to the travel roster. The reserves and the guys that didn’t see too much action the day prior played a full 90-minute game. The guys that played significant minutes in the game played small-sided games on an alternate field.
We had a light training on Friday with some technical work and lots of finishing. There were a few changes made to the travel roster after Thursday’s match as we began preparing for the difficult task that Saturday would bring. As I have now discovered in two seasons here, it’s never easy going to play at Hope College and with Saturday being their homecoming, this year would probably be more difficult than most.
Hope put us under fire early, but after quelling their early attacks, we were able to settle in and play a little bit. The match was fairly back and forth for most of the first half. They definitely had us on chances, but we had a few good looks at goal. It looked like we would enter half time at a scoreless draw, but we gave up an untimely free kick with just under 2 minutes remaining. We knew they were dangerous on set pieces, and they proved to be just that as their player hit a screamer into the upper corner that just beat Anthony.
Although down 1-0 at half, I thought we were very much still in the match. The second half was played at a much slower tempo, at least for the first 15-20 minutes. Things finally started to pick up about midway through the half, and that’s just about when Hope was able to tuck away a ball that had been bouncing around in our box for the better half of a minute. The match ended at a 2-0 score line as we were not able to generate any offense late in the 2nd period. Our offensive drought certainly wasn’t helped by the fact that Mark Daisy was unable to play due to a severe hip-flexor pull that he suffered late in warm-ups.
We certainly didn’t play poorly on Saturday and there was no reason for any of our guys to hang their heads in shame. But, against teams like Hope on the road, it’s going to take more than just a solid effort to overcome the added adversity of playing at their field during their homecoming. I was pleased with our overall play, we just need to find the edge that we’re still missing to overcome some of these better teams in the conference.
We’ll have a lighter training today in preparation for our match tomorrow at Albion. The reserve match scheduled for today against Northwood has been canceled. The reserves next match is scheduled for this coming Sunday at Northwood at 1:00 pm. Game time for varsity at Albion tomorrow is at 4:00 pm.
Posted: Mon, October 8th, 2007 at 2:33PM
