Soccer in Region 24 is tough no matter who you play, but the stakes go up when you play someone in your neighborhood. That's the feeling that I have had for the past two years when we have played our neighbors, SWIC and Kaskaskia. Today was no different. Coming into the match today RLC and Kaskaskia were both 0-4 in Region 24 play. So to say that both colleges wanted a win in the region is an understatement.
After looking at the records of both teams and comparing how we have faired against the teams that Kaskaskia has played I felt like today's match would be a close game. They have played some teams close, just as we have and they have lost some games by the same goal differential that we have lost. On paper it looked like an even match. So we approached this match with the hopes that we would get out in front and stay there the entire match, putting the pressure on them to play catch up.
We scored our first goal in the 12th minute. Nelson Kenne put one in on the end of a nice run to the box. After his goal I could see the hunger in the eyes of the other boys as they were celebrating the first goal. The second one came nine minutes later in the 21st minute from Robert Rock. This was the first of two goals for Rocky on the day. He scored later in the second half in the 59th minute. Our midfield and defense kept the ball out of our defensive third for most of the first half, making life easy for our Keeper, Timmy Meldezis. After missing some very good opportunties to score in the first half (we failed to convert a PK) we went into the half with a 2-0 lead. My speech at half was, "Don't come out flat, go out with maximum intensity and put this one away early". I challenged them to mess KC's sheets up in the first five minutes so that we would dash any hopes of them coming back to make a game out of it.
The boys overwhelmingly responded. Jordan Grace found the sheets at the 47th minute off of a sweet assist from Alex Larson, who by the way played a man's game in the middle. Twelve minutes later Rocky delivered the knock out punch with a goal in the 59th minute and once again Larson was credited with the assist. With the game under wraps we tacked on three more goals in the remainder of the game. Jordan Grace and Neil Houlihan teamed up for back to back goals in the 76th and 77th minutes. It was Alex Larson that finished the scoring as he capped off an attack lead by Micah Ressler with a goal in the right side of the net in the 89th minute.
This was a breakout win for us. We have been in some very close games where we felt like we should have scored but for whatever reason we just couldn't get a goal. The first one is always the hardest to get, and I feel like if we can get the first one that it will open the gate for the rest of them. The gate opened tonight and the boys responded with a very good performance. I hope that we can play Monday's game with this game fresh on our minds. If so, we should score first and often against East Central.
Nice win Warriors!!! Keep up the good work.
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