The lads from Simsbury visited Taft today to play against our lads in red on a partly sunny, windy Wednesday in early October. Both teams were back and forth for the first 15 minutes of the match when Taft earned a corner from the left side. I directed right midfielder Owen Wyman to stay wide and collect any ball that came through and either immediately shoot it or cross it. That’s exactly what happened, and Owen scored probably the first soccer goal of his life off a deflection off of a Westie defender. I wish it was that easy every time, alas. Unfortunately, Westie scored the next two goals of the first half and led two one when the referee blew his whistle twice to end the half. If we had scored the first goal of the second half, we really would have had a match. Unfortunately, Westie scored the first goal of the second half in the 42nd minute. Our first shot of the second half was from about 40 yards out directly to the very-good Westie goalie who ran up to the edge of the 18-yard box and punted a long ball for a run on by a Westie forward and a shot past the Taft GK. Taft then missed another PK in the 50th minute while Westie scored the next two goals to go up five one. Taft scored a late PK to bring the score to the final of five two for Westie. We need to play smarter and unselfishly. We don’t need heroes. We need goals and stout defense played by everyone. There are no drills that impart true trust in your teammates. That has to come from within. Both Ryan Egan and Aidan Chan played well for Taft in the goal today. The goals scored by Westie were not the fault of the GK’s certainly. Tyme, Ayden, Abdullah and Kevin played well for Taft along the back line, as well. Our next match is this Saturday at Taft against the lads from Salisbury at 230PM. See you there!