What a weekend!

The start of the 2009 soccer season came on Friday night, and oh what an impressive start. We played McHenry High from the Chicago suburbs in the opening round of the Midwest Soccer Classic held here in Quincy. The first fifteen minutes of the game was pretty even, but from that point on, the floodgates opened and we were all over McHenry for the next 60 minutes. Our passing was crisp and our pressure was high. Mitchell Schrage scored two first half goals and Blake Williams and Zach Forbes added 2nd half goals for a final of 4-0. We played so well that the McHenry coach said, "It's been a couple years since I have seen a team this good!" What a compliment.

Too bad we didn't carry over that same intensity on Saturday morning vs Kirksville. We can think up a lot of different excuses for why we played so poorly. 1) It was 9:30 AM 2)It was Kirksville 3)we were reserving energy for the afternoon game. I don't really know what it was, but I think we learned a lot from it. Gavin Schaefer put us on the board in the first half for a 1-0 half-time lead. However, the start of the 2nd half we exploded for 3 goals in the first 5 minutes and went on to a 5-0 victory. Matt Burrus scored twice and Blake Willams and Taylor Nord also chipped in goals.

The afternoon game for us was a very important game for jhust the 3rd one of the season. Our regional is now down in the St. Louis area and we only play a few teams from down there. Collinsville, while not usually in our regional, plays all the teams that are, so it was a chance to show what we are capable of. Not to mention that last year, they were the only team to beat us in a regualtion game. From the first whistle, we were down their throat. Blake Camacho ripped a shot off the crossbar 20 seconds into the game and we would hit it 2 more times in the first half but could only muster 1 goal from Mitchell Schrage to lead 1-0 at the half. Collinsville had the wind in the 2nd half and they created more. It seemed like we were content to play defense the last 10 minutes of the game and try and pull out a 1-0 win, but Blake Williams scored off a corner kick with under 4 to play. Thinking we had it wrapped up now, we let down and gave up our first goal of the year on a restart. Something that should NEVER happen with our size. With under a minute to play Matt Burrus sealed the game with a nice 1 on 1 goal and a 3-1 victory and TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONSHIP!

This week we have 3 games at home, playing Hannibal on Tuesday, Belleville East on Friday and Columbia, IL on Saturday. It will also mark the start of our JV schedule as they will also play Canton, MO on Monday.

Our Sophomore team opened their weekend in fine fashion as well with a road trip to Springfield to take on Normal West and Springfield SH-G. In their first game vs Normal West, they jumped out to a 4-0 half-time lead and never looked back winning 5-1. Freshman Bronson Melvin scored 4 goals and Sophomore Michael Davis added one. Playing their 2nd game of a back to back game, the team played to a scoreless draw with SH-G. It was our 2nd game, but only the first for SH-G, which made a difference. The Sophomores play 3 games this week as well. The play Friday at home vs the Columbia JV, then on Saturday host Columbia, MO Rock Bridge and Springfield SHG