A hot and sweaty opening weekend in Iowa traveling to Cedar Rapids for Saturday’s match against FC United Iowa and then over to Des Moines to face Sporting Iowa on Sunday morning.
Saturday ended in a 3-1 loss as we could not capitalize on a few set piece opportunities we had to keep this one a bit closer. I contributed to the lone goal dribbling to the right corner, beating my defender 1v1 and sent a cross into the box that was then pushed forward to our left winger crashing the far post for a sliding tap in to tie the game 1-1 going into half. FC scored their second goal on a really pretty header off a corner kick and tallied their third late in the game on a defensive mistake at the top of the box.
Sunday was a better showing for us as we were able to maintain possession and move the ball well from the defense through the midfield. Again we had a few set piece opportunities where the ball just would not find the right foot until we were finally able to bury one in the back of the net from just outside the 6 yard box mid-way through the first half. Much of the same in the second half where we hit the crossbar twice and I had a 1v1 with the keeper coming out to shut down my angle where I was able to trickle it past her and it was rolling to the goal line as their defender cleared it away. Good win and confidence builder for the team!
Busy week ahead as we have a SLYSA ELITE league game Thursday evening and two more ECNL RL league games this weekend.
