Game 1: Played at Walnut Hills High School; Suzanne wiki’d the school and it is the magnet school in the Cincinnati Public School system….it is under major construction right now but the old old parts and the new new parts were very impressive.
(Suzanne took a lot of pictures during the first two games)
(like this one, he’s done a good job here of getting to the ball…..)
(….and flicking it on forward)
We lost 3-1…..we jumped out to a 1-0 lead on a penalty kick and held that lead into the second half. We then gave up two goals that made me remember that I’ve been critical of our goaltender before; these were howlers….goals we should not be giving up. And I can’t even say that the third goal wasn’t the result of poor goaltending…..hard to deal with sometimes.
(still amazed by some of these photos when I can see how high in the air he gets ….)
(collect the ball, turn, and…)
(move the ball forward….)
The boys played well for 40 minutes, but, the other team adjusted to how we were playing and we did not. End of story.
Weather? Hey, partly cloudy, temp about 52 for the 11:45 kickoff…..I can live with this.
Game 2: Second game at Walnut Hills but we are on the other of the two fields they have set up on the high school turf football field….they have a large section of the field torn up for construction so they had to shoehorn in two fields on this football field and one field, the one for this game, is noticeably smaller than the other.
(I liked this sequence of photos, it shows Matthew turning a bad play into something positive. He’s about to receive this pass….we are heading towards the goal to the left (not the goal you see in this picture, that’s on the side of the field)
(the pass is not the best…Matthew has to come back to get it…)
(but he stops it…)
(quickly moves it forward…)
(checks out what he should do with the ball…)
(and gets rid of it….)
Kickoff is 8:30 pm; first game ever under the lights. That’s kind of cool, and the temperature is downright frigid, 36 and windy. Definitely need all of the winter gear we brought with us….Cpher spend a lot of time texting during the game and finally had to give that up as his fingers froze….really surprised Suzanne took as many pictures as she did….
(not sure what he was doing here in these two photos….)
And the boys won 4-0. Pretty complete game, no real complaints here, and Matthew had a pretty sweet goal to round out the scoring. I was actually kind of irked when the attack started that led to Matthew’s goal….the side midfielder standing at about midfield passed the ball straight up the field along the side instead of passing it out to the middle to a wide open Matthew (literally, there wasn’t another player within ten yards). But at least Matthew didn’t stop running, he kept running towards the goal and the forward received the pass and centered the ball, and Matthew used his knee to redirect the ball pretty authoritatively into the goal.
(I know what he’s doing here…..I think this ball goes over his head though)
(in hot pursuit!)
(and he bends down and still is able to flick this throw-in forward….)
Okay, one complaint, he celebrated too much after his goal…ran out and away and slid to a halt as his teammates rushed up to mug him. It was a pretty sweet goal though…
(act like you’ve been there before buddy….)
Headed to the local ice cream institution, Graeter’s, with some of the kids and families afterwards….it didn’t sound like a great idea while sitting on the field but it turned out to be a blast, good ice cream and a good time.
Game 3: Different high school, Withrow. Same architect, and man, there are some impressive high schools in Cincinnati…very impressive. At least from the outside…
Kickoff is at 1:45 pm. There are snow flurries, it is windy, and the temperature is about 35 degrees. No pictures here…..
We lose 3-2. Team did not play well…..another absolute howler of a goal given up by the goalie (old school, 6-year old type goal; bounces off your hands through your legs…..). And then he set up off-center on the penalty kick against us, and of course the kid goes to the side where there’s more room and seems like it’s a surprise that the kid shot the ball that way (I could see setting up off-center if you have every intention of diving back that way)…..but, to be fair, he did save another penalty kick. And the third goal is yet another goalie/defense miscommunication….very frustrating. Not Matthew’s finest game….but not his worst either. Thought he played pretty decently in these three games.
Aftermath: Finish 1-2, tied for 2nd with the teams from Games 2 and 3 in the four-team bracket. Scored 7 goals, gave up 6. Five of which I don’t think teams playing at this level of soccer should be giving up. Very frustrating.
Hey, what about the rest of the trip?: Didn’t do a lot of sightseeing; we did, on Saturday morning before the games, go down to the Findlay Market, which is a an arts-farmer’s market (some stores inside, some out, a lot of meat stores down here…) and drive along the waterfront. Didn’t stay at the same hotel as the team (used some of my free Marriott nights) but one that was closer to our fields. Jack-in-the-Box has moved further north so we enjoyed some greasy tacos…..the coach laid down a strict no-pool edict which we ignored….watched the Big Ten basketball tournament, including watching MSU over the internet Friday night and noticing the 5-second gap between video on the iphone (which Matthew had) and the ipad (that Mom and Dad were watching). Trip down and back pretty uneventful driving wise…..lots of police on the road Sunday afternoon but that’s pretty typical I guess…..got home at 8 pm just in time for family-Amazing-Race-Walking-Dead-time……
Anything else?: Cpher’s basketball team lost to two teams they should have beaten while he was gone…..season-ending tournament this weekend. Lacrosse practice starts, indoor, tonight.
