Oct. 8, 2007

By Sonny Renner

For the last game before the conference kicks off, we faced a very competitive Oakland Golden Grizzlies team.

We came off an emotional victory against Wright State at their complex last weekend and needed a big win against a very good and physical team to boost ourselves for our conference games in the upcoming weeks. We had intense training sessions leading up to our game on Wednesday. The team's mental state was intact during the week which helped us in our match to improve our record to 6-1-2.

Going into the game, we all wanted to do what was necessary to win and knew we had to get the job done. The mentality of the team was great in the warm up and prior to the kick off. This was the game that could change the course of the season and with a loss could really hurt our mental aspect right before the most crucial part of the season began.

Right before the kick off, the team huddled with Zac Gibbens leading the pre-game talk. He expressed that Oakland was going to come out flying, and we needed to match their intensity but with more quality and success in front of goal.

The game started off very well for us. We were connecting passes and moving off the ball in the attacking third, which can set us apart from other teams. By doing this, much space opened up on the outside which resulted in a beautiful pass from Alex Torda to Josh Albers. This was great for the morale of the team especially being so early in the match.

A few minutes later, Florian DeCamps slipped a pass between the Oakland defense which Alex Torda took into stride, beat the defender and fired a shot into the near post. This was a great feeling! It has been hard for us to score as a team early in the past few matches and to do this took pressure off the defense. Our defense was very solid throughout the first half. However, Tommy Watkins slid into a tackle with one of their backs and unfortunately forced him to be substituted. Tommy has been great for us this season, he has contributed to our solid defense and has a great attitude which is much appreciated among the whole team. After the game, we found out that Tommy's injury was more serious than any of us anticipated with a broken leg.

Things like this happen over the course of the year; Zach Weiss filled in for him with much enthusiasm throughout the game and we are sure he will be able to contribute for the remainder of the season. The second half was similar to the first in our domination but without a goal for our works.

Unfortunately, a very questionable call for a penalty kick was given with 45 seconds left. They converted, and the game ended 2-1. We won and our record improved to 6-1-2. It was crucial to win this game for our mentality and this win equaled our total win score for the last year which was six.

This gives us a huge boost of confidence going into the hardest away matches of our conference. With our offense clicking, our defense needs to remain consistent going into the conference.

It was very important for us going 326 minutes without a goal being scored against us in the past few games. Hopefully we reach those minutes again and improve our goals against average. As a team, we look forward to the upcoming matches and will continue to improve our quality of play as we shoot for the A-10 Conference Season Championship.