2003-04-14 - 8:39 a.m. Sports Shorts (not short) Hello there I do live in Boston. Its a great city. I rode in this morning with my friend Vikram cause he needed a ride to work and with his dad disowning him and all, he's kinda down on his luck. Last night was the soccer playoff matchup. Its single round elimination and so the teams have to play and play and play until they are eliminated and its based on you record. You do play in brackets but the worst teams plays the most games and the best team plays the least. So we were middle of the pack; the seventh ranked team in a 12 team division. Our team isn�t good. In fact we are pretty bad considering. We win through pure heart and pure grit. We just run harder than the other team and never give up. Its amazing how much that matters in the playoffs. First Game--- Solid. We have no goaltender so Mike Kilbasa (the sausage) who is our best player in the field plays in net. This team we play is a little tired but play well and end up losing the game to us. We played very well and the final score was 4-1. Second Game�We go up against the team ranked 4th overall that beat up 7-3 the first game. We decided to play with more defenders and just pound them into the ground until they don�t want to come down that end anymore. Well that works and in fact we get a lucky breakaway goal and we go up 1-0. We were lucky because we got this kid to be goalie from a losing team we played. He really kicked ass for us. Anyway our defence played really well and we went up by 3-0 before they scored their first goal with 4 minutes left. We scored two more times bringing the final up to 5-1. We are old men and aren�t get the rest we need. Most of our team; since we play so hard to win, is really tired at this point. Two kids are playing with injuries. Vikram and Jay have lost all their knee skin on the Astroturf. Things aren�t looking good. We are slated to play the winner of the 1v 6 team next. Wonder who�s going to win that? Anyway the game in between goes to overtime and double overtime and then to a shootout. The place is crackling with excitement as the Cinderella team wins and their goalie saves the last ball. They knocked off the number two team; which is good cause that the team we almost fought with. Game Three---We then go out to face the Blue Bombers (the number one team) that beat their opponent by a health margin the previous game. We were very flat in the first five minutes and they manage to sneak one by us. By we answered right back with a roaring goal. The crowd begins to cheer for us since most of us are bleeding and bruised and running on fumes. We have heart. But that pretty much all we have as they start teeing off on us peppering us with shot after shot. The goalie manages to fend of most the shots but he lets one get by bringing the score to 2-1. Heart is playing for the full 60-minute game, every second, and that�s what we did. We played hard hitting gritty soccer with the blood stains and the sweat marks all over us. We played as we gasped for air and wished for the stamina of our youth. Finally in the last minute of the game we got the ball up to Kilbasa who rolled over the middle and shot it. He missed, but the rebound caromed right to the foot of Ronnie who blasted one past the goalie with 30 seconds left on the clock. This forced overtime. As we went into over time we had very little left in the tank. The age and injury started the catch up and we fell flat again. I would love to say that we had knocked off the number one with an overtime-stunning goal, but we lost. We lost in a nutmeg the goalie, feeble shot by an unmarked man who was open while we were doing a line change. It wasn�t epic, but we didn�t have anything left, and there is something to be said for that. Leaving a field and barely being able to walk. It�s a feeling that you tried you hardest and rarely do people get the chance to push their limits. I am proud of the team, and its too bad we won�t be able to play again. Great effort though; the semi finals. After our game the one team faced the three team. The three team probably lost. I can tell you this though. They didn�t play as hard as we did. | |||||||||||
