Boys' Soccer - III
vs.
The Berkshire School
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Win 6-2
The Taft Thirds soccer team welcomed the Berkshire Thirds team to our field this afternoon on a lovely fall afternoon after a couple of days of gloomy weather. Our lads did their best to help lift the gloom by earning a good six-two win over another team that was returning from Family Long Weekend. Taft opened the scoring in the third minute as Jack Dodd once again used his tremendous speed with the ball to flank the Berkshire defense down the left side to send a negative ball to Miller Masterson in the six-yard box for a tap-in. In the sixth minute, Chris Joszczyk sent in a lovely corner that Miller headed towards the B’shire goal that was then put in by a B’shire defender attempting to clear the ball, alas. Berkshire earned a goal in the twelfth minute through a penalty due to a Taft foul in the box. Taft’s central defense retreated in the face of an oncoming attack and therefore kept a Berkshire forward onside and dangerous and susceptible to such an outcome. We discussed this at halftime and our defenders were much more aware of their placement on the field during the second half. Miller scored again in the 14th minute on a lovely header off a corner sent in again by Chris. This was a really pretty goal and did earn Miller his $10 Jig gift certificate for this match. Next Jack again assisted a teammate as he passed the ball to Andrew Jimenez who banged a shot off of a B’shire defender, over their keeper and in. I always tell the lads to shoot the ball and good things will happen for our team and this was just what happened in this instance. The half-whistle blew with Taft ahead four-one. Taft began the second half much as we ended as Jefferson Kao recovered a close-in rebound off of the B’shire keeper to earn a hard fought goal. This was a good result for Jeff as he missed two 99% chances earlier in the match by somehow missing an open net from very near the opposition’s goal. Deep sigh, they are young fellows doing their best. Jeff and I discussed finishing with poise at half, as well. In the 50th minute, Jack sent another negative ball across to Oliver “Scav” Eastman for another easy tap-in goal. I love these types of goals. They are not spectacular or worthy of a video but boy are they examples of a very effective way to score and win matches. That’s what we practice and that’s what we desire to do. Berkshire scored a nice goal in the 69th minute to finish the scoring at six-two. For this match, I decided to not stand on the touchline and holler at our team for 80 straight minutes and told the boys this before the match started. Instead, I sat on the bench and explained to the lads what was going on out on the field, how certain decisions by our players or theirs led to positive or negative outcomes. It was a lot of fun actually, and I hope the boys were listening. However, during the second half we were playing a man down for about fifteen minutes as I sent in two lads and three came off due to miscommunication. I always count heads going out and coming back and couldn’t do that whilst sitting on the bench. Therefore I believe that a gentle median between the 80-minute holler and the sedentary philosophizing will be the way to go in the future. I’ll let you know how that turns out. Also, we didn’t lose a game-ball today. Hurray! Our next match is this Saturday up at Kent. See you there!