Sept. 2, 2008

Match vs. Wright State - Aug. 31
We all knew at the start of the day that this match was going to be a lot different than Friday night's 3-1 win against Denver. We were playing for the championship and playing for pride in front of our own crowd at Baujan field. This match was against our local rivals so no excuses could be made for a bad performance or anything other than a victory.

The game started differently to the one of Friday night because we didn't come off the pitch after 45 seconds due to lightning! The game was fast and energy was high. We took control of the possession early and managed to get a free kick in a good position after 13 minutes. Sonny Renner stepped up and whipped a perfect ball in and luckily the player marking me was a lot smaller than me! I managed to time the run to get a half decent contact on the ball and send the ball to the other side of the goal as the goalkeeper watched it go in over the line.

It was great to get an early goal for the team to help settle the nerves and so we could relax and play some decent soccer from then on. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case. We rarely strung a good amount of passes together but I still felt we were in total control of the game and could always see us scoring.

As half time approached, Issac Kissi made a great forward run and was picked out perfectly to set him up for a volley but it just flew over the bar by a few inches.

When the second half started we knew it was important as the back four to keep a good solid foundation for the whole of the team and I feel we did this well and WSU didn't trouble us at all. With Alex Davis cleanly catching crosses and balls into the box I was always confident of keeping the shutout.

Things changed after about 60 minutes when my other English teammate Luke Baker got an unfortunate red card for a late tackle. We all knew now that everyone had to defend properly as a team because they were going to throw everything they had at us.

With 10 minutes to go, Joe Olwig skillfully beat a man on a one-and-one and produced a shot that just crept past the far post. If his shot had gone in this would have definitely been game, set and match.

In the last minute we conceded a needless free kick in our half but some good defending from Ryan Handbury made sure we saw the game through 1-0 which meant I got the game winner which was a great feeling.

After the match everyone was buzzing. The crowd was congratulating us and our team and coaching staff were all really happy and pleased we had won the tournament. The weekend was very successful and it was a great squad effort with everyone contributing one way or another.

Personallly, it wasn't a bad weekend for me either. I managed to be selected in the Dayton Flyer Marriott Invitational All-Tournament Team with three other teammates and notch up my first goal for the Flyers. But most importantly we won the tournament as a squad and we look to progress now with our unbeaten start to the season.