Premier League Game #3 vs Wayzata

A rematch of the NSC Cup championship match up 3 days ago, I wasn't very confident we'd be able to get a favorable result tonight in Woodbury.  Not that I think Wayzata is better than us, but rather because we'd be without 3 players for most of the game as Blondie and Soph had a band concert in Woodbury and would be arriving sometime after halftime, and Brownie was out with a band concert of her own down in Lakeville.  The fields at Bielenberg are huge, and having a limited number of subs would not help us.

There was some major traffic delays on the roadways, so 20 minutes prior to game time I had 8 players on site.  Enough to play I guess... but it didn't do anything to help my confidence that we would provide Wayzata with a game.  Girls started to trickle in, though between girls showing up late and those girls (having been stuck in traffic for 60 minutes while hydrating) having to find restrooms, our warm-up intensity was well below our normal standard.  Could be a long night.

The game kicked off, and before I could get very settled in my chair with a mouthful of sunflower seeds we went up 1-0.  Wayzata cleared a ball out of their end and pushed their team up the field.  Hannah, about 10 yards inside our half, sent a long ball back at the Wayzata defenders that caught some of them by surprise.  The ball bounced through them and Macky (RF) ran onto it.  She peeked up prior to reaching the ball, saw the Wayzata GK at the top of her box in no-man's land, and proceeded to send an early, high, lofted shot sailing over the keeper's head into the net.  It was a great, head's up finish by Macky and an important lift to the team.

Around the 27 minute mark, we got our second.  Jilly (LM) tried to play a long ball to Ripper (LF) in the left corner.  The Wayzata defender, with Ripper pressuring, got to the ball first and tried to play a back pass to her GK.  The pass was hit too softly, so Ripper pounced on the ball, took a touch wide of the approaching GK and hit a low shot into the net.

We played well in the first half, creating maybe one or two additional "good" chances at goal.  Wayzata was really only dangerous on their attacking corner kicks as our defenders played tough.  The first half ended 2-0.

Blondie arrived at halftime with Soph close on her heels.  The fresh legs were exactly what we needed as our midfielders were tiring quickly. 

At halftime, we talked about our wide mids pinching in to help our central mids when we didn't have the ball.  Wayzata was able to knock the ball around at times in our defending third just outside of our box, and we needed to get more numbers in the middle of the field to try and distupt this. 

We also talked about making the Wayzata defenders more predictable by having our forwards bend their runs when applying pressure as to not allow Wayzata to change fields.  We want to change fields in order to find teammates with time and space in less populated areas of the field.  I explained to the girls that if we want to change fields in possession, doesn't it make sense that we want to stop our opponents from doing the same thing?  A few light bulbs went off at that statement.  A few...

The second half saw us continue to play well.  Both teams had some dangerous chances on goal but neither team could break through to score.  The game ended 2-0, good guys.

Looking at the standings below, this is why I'm so glad we were able to participate in this league.  It is almost impossible to predict who will win a game in this league as any team can beat any other team.  Last fall, people wrote off teams like Wayzata, Coon Rapids, yet both teams have proven that they belong in this league.  When Woodbury was added to the league this past winter, again people looked to write them off, claiming that they would struggle to maintain their Premier status.  I think all these teams have dug in their heels and have something to prove, and to this point, they have all done so.

It will be interesting to see how things shake out come mid-July, but I think all the U14G Premier coaches will agree with me that all our girls will benefit from this competitive experience.