After the first week of play, the Franklin Twp Wildcats came to RSP on Sunday tied for first place with the real WILDCATS. They also came in with a grudge to avenge last season's 4-2 defeat, and optimism after opening their season with a 5-1 trouncing of Readington.
From the opening whistle it was evident that the visitors' gameplan was to boot the ball as hard and high as possible downfield and have their forwards chase. Liz, Bri, Chelsea, Rachel and Andy were equal to the aerial attacks in the first half, not allowing any real pressure on our goal, which made for a comfortable half in goal for Bre. Mattie and Syd were quiet in the central midfield in the first half, but coordinated some good advances into Franklin's defensive third via Amy, Reb and Siobhan on the outside and Jules, Hannah and Lin up front. All in all, in the first half, we struggled to play our game against this unorthodox style, and we were stalemated at 0-0 at the half.
The half-time talk was basically a reassurance that playing our game will win out over kick & run. We couldn't have asked for anything better... within 2 minutes of the second half Reb took a ball from the mid-line, up the left flank, and released a low right footed drive from just inside the corner of the penalty area which beat the Franklin keeper on her near post. The LV WILDCATS kept pouring on the pressure, with Syd and Mattie starting to make their presence known in the center. In the 19th minute Amy crossed the ball from just inside the right corner of the 18, which the keeper came out to save, but Jules hard charge distracted her and she bobbled the ball, which Jules alerted tapped under the keeper and then poked into the back of the net. Reb finished them off with when she received a goal kick and returned in to Franklin's goal from distance.
The Real WILDCATS dominated the rest of the game as Bre moved to defense and helped keep things quiet around their goal for second half keeper, Lin. The 3-0 win puts the WILDCATS in a first place tie with Watchung Hills, who we visit next Saturday in the first round of State Cup. Then it's onto Readington on Sunday for our week 3 league game. We also look forward to getting our assistant coach / cheerleader, Paige back in the line-up next week, after her cast comes off !!!