1-1-1

That's the way our season has started. One win, one tie, one loss. We hosted Lindenwood University at Belleville yesterday afternoon at 4:00. LU @ Belleville is a new program, much like Rend Lake was last year, except for the fact that LU is a four year university. Coach Dan Hogan found 18 Junior College transfers and has put together a pretty good team.

I had no idea what to expect when the whistle blew yesterday afternoon, but I was confident that our boys were up for the challenge. The first half was pretty even. We had the slight edge in possession time and we had a few more opportunites to score than they did, but we both come up blank in the first 45 minutes. It was a physical game, but the Head Ref kept things under control. So, at half we talked about putting one in quick to gain the mental advantage. We responded with a beautiful cross by Juan Arreola and a nice finish by Neil Houlihan in the goal box. We have scored first in our first three games. That's normally a good sign of things to come, but not necessarily so.

We did the same thing in this game against LU that we did against Danville when we went up,,,, we relaxed. The intensity was gone, we let our guard down and they scored within 15 minutes. We talked about correcting that in tonight's pratice. 15 minutes later LU finds the net again. Now we're down 2-1 and LU is nervous. They change their game plan, and try to go to a stall game. Our boys dug down and put pressure on their end of the pitch for the next fifteen minutes. We bounced one off the far post, missed by inches. And Juan Arreola had a rocket shot from 35 yards out that almost caught the upper 90. Two inches to the right and we're up by one, if you count the one that bounced off the far post. We put constant pressure on their Keeper in that last quarter of a half, but it wasn't meant to be. The final whistle blew and we walked away with a very near miss.

Positive points on the game were: (1) Marcus Fernandes turned in a very good performance as Keeper. (2) Backs. I used six backs in the game and they all gave me a great effort. (3) Possession game. We did a very good job of possessing the ball in the first half, we didn't use it like we should have in the second half. (4) Forwards, worked hard to open up space for some nice runs. I used six forwards and there isn't much difference in all six. They all gave me quality time.

Yes, I was disappointed. This one could have easily gone our way. I always feel better after a win, but we can't win them all. This was a very good effort against a good team. We're a better team for playing this game. So, we'll build off of it and hopefully get a win tomorrow against Kaskaskia.