Sunday, September 20, 2009:
been
Today we completed our road trip with a win at Fontbonne University. After Friday's lack of intensity and commitment to purpose for 90 minutes, today was a little better. Again we played on turf and it was pretty good as it had been raining most of the morning, so not having mud to contend with was a bonus. Our intensity seemed better at the start, as was our commitment to our purpose. However, our passing, touch on the ball and communication both on and off the ball was certainly not where it needed to be in order to sustain a complete game.

The game started uneventful, with our team trying to regain what was lost on Friday against Washington University....our balance, rhythm and flow to the game! In the 10th minute we struck with some great combinations, resulting in a great through ball by Tony Crocker to Tyler Evans for our 1st goal. 6 minutes later, Sean Head hit a great shot from about 25 yards out that went in the upper 90 of the goal, to make the score now 2:0. The first half ended that way. In the second half we started controlling the tempo of the game, thus creating our lost rhythm. We had many nice combinations and finally in the 80th minute, we finished a nice cross from Tyler Evans to Andrew Shelton, to make the score now 3:0. We had some other really good chances, only to see them either go just wide or right to their keeper. The game ended 3:0 for our 4th shutout of the season. One of our freshman goalkeepers, Charlie Boles stepped in quite ably for Shachar and our other freshman keeper, Clint Lum finished off the shutout for us. Our record now stands at 5 wins, 1 loss and 0 ties. We will begin conference play this coming Friday at home against Rhodes College and on Sunday, against Hendrix College.

We must continue to improve and stop playing without intensity or a sense of purpose. We must also take better care of the ball, improve our communication on and off the ball, as well get into our rhythm earlier in order to create our type of flow that will continue to make us successful. It was nice to see how we responded today after hitting rock bottom on Friday. We started our bounce back up, but not all the way or as high as we need, in order to dominate from start to finish. I know it is there! I told each of them about what I always say to my daughter before she competes in her running or pole vaulting..."believe in yourself and trust your ability"! Once they start believing in that, we will be able to accomplish great things together as at team of one!

So, until this coming week-end games, I will say good-bye from the road home on our team bus.

Best regards,
Coach Goldfarb from the road home