Old Schoolers

That’s the name of our team for the over-30s winter league. We played our first game last night and we won. We beat a team 3-2 that looked like they had no one over 30. I played keeper unexpectedly. Our first-string keeper was out sick and our second-string keeper can’t play goal until January because of rehab from a car accident earlier this year. I did well once I adjusted.

I let an easy first goal in because I wandered a little too far off my line. The lines aren’t well defined, so I lost my bearings a bit and a player put one over my head for the first goal of the match. I got my finger tips on it, but couldn’t re-direct the ball. The second goal was a decent goal where I didn’t have much of a chance at making a stop. An opposing player made a break through the defense for a one-on-one with me. I tried to wait a few seconds for a stutter-step, or for him to commit to a shot, but he held and I had to come out to cut down the angle. He snuck it past me into the left side of the goal at the last second to put them up 2-0. We had a few more close calls, but they couldn’t convert (a couple of them were good saves on my part).

Franz scored a goal one or two minutes before the half to pull us within one. We came out strong in the second half. Brian had a ripper than clanged off the right post and went flying 40 yards out of bounds. Then finally a light at the end of the tunnel, Nate made a run down the field, beating a couple defenders and going around the keeper for the easy put-in. That brought us to even. The other team was frustrated they “let” us come back and made a bad pass on the restart. We stole the ball and made a quick run for an easy one-two goal to put us up 3-2. We were elated. There was only about 12 minutes left, and the other team pressed for an equalizer. I came up with a couple of great saves and the defense made a couple of key stops to help us hold on to the 3-2 victory.

Glory days!