MNJYSA game #6 (3rd game played)
At the last minute the game was moved from Hunterdon Central's turf field to Lenape Park's long-grass field, and moved up to start 15 minutes earlier. The sky looked omenous, and everything seemed to be against us... still without injured Hannah, and not having Bri on the night meant we only had two subs.. but the girls seemed in good spirits.
We lost the toss, and soon after moving the ball upfield on the kick-off we lost possession and the Cyclones fed their speedy right wing up the right side. She got half a step on our defense, which prompted Lin to advance to cut down the angle. Their #7 released a very hard shot that Lin blocked, but the ball deflected into the huddle of our defense and their strikers and rolled out of Lin's reach allowing another Flemington striker to slot the ball home for a 1-0 Cyclone lead less than two minutes into the game.
Instead of putting their heads down and shrinking away, the Wildcats got their backs up and started really fighing for the ball and advancing well. The pressure paid off when Jules fed Reb up the right side, who unleashed a great far post cross that the defender couldn't handle, and it deflected off her legs into the side of goal to tie the game at 1's. Keeping up the pressure, the Wildcats won a free kick outside of the Felmington box on our left side. Reb had the ref move the wall back to 10 yards, and proceded to smash a line drive past the wall past the defense, and past the keeper into the far side netting for a 2-1 lead. With the bit between their teeth the Wildcats frustrated the Cyclones with their physical play and kept the pressure on, with the ball rarely getting close to our own defensive third. A third goal before the half would have been a just reward for the Wildcats efforts, but it wasn't to be as the half ended 2-1.
Flemington changed things up a little in the second half, and for the first 10 minutes or so were maintaining pressure near our box. The Wildcats made a tactical change of their own, by countering their move from a 4-3-3 to a 3-4-3, by switching from our 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2 to even up the middle. The moved seemed to settle things down and the Wildcats started seeing move of the ball again, and gradually moved the play towards the Cyclones end of the pitch. 22 minutes in the Wildcats were awarded a very dubious DFK on the edge of the box directly in front of goal. As the coaches were yelling for Jules to take what we thought was a PK, Reb jogged over and blasted the free kick into the upper right 90 for her third on the night.
Seven minutes later Paige slotted a nice pass through to Jules, who from the tightest of angles outside the six, chipped a left footed lob over the keeper to put the Wildcats up 4-1. Flemington was down, and didn't muster much after the fourth goal, but still had some potentially dangerous attacks that Liz, Chelsea, Andy and Rachel snuffed out well. In added time Jordan made some nice moves on the left wing then released Reb who chipped the keeper from the right side to put the icing on the cake with her fourth goal of the night and a 5-1 victory for the Wildcats.
Syd and Paige did a great job in the central midfield roles, both individually in the 4-3-3 and together in the 4-4-2, and controlled the game for the most part. Mattie, Amy, Jules, and Jordan all had solid games, along with our two keepers that weren't challenged much between the pipes.
Next up is a home night game against Cranford on Saturday. Looking forward to some more of the same as we saw against Hillside and Flemington games under the llights against Cranford !!!!
GO WILDCATS !!!!