It Wasn't Pretty But We'll Take It - HMHS 2, W. Deptford 0

  "A W is a W," said a relieved Haddonfield Coach Glenn Gess moments after the Bulldogs ran their record to 10-0 with a 2-0 shutout of archrival West Deptford on a slippery HMHS field.

   It wasn't pretty off the field either, but like the girls on the field we got it done.

   Driving home from work in Marlton through a rain shower at 5 o'clock I never thought we'd play.  But an hour later the stadium field was eminently playable - just a little slippery.

   It was nice, as always, to chat with West Deptford's assistant coach, Amy Leso, who has been with the program since Kirsten's senior year - 1996.  Also nice to see referee Bob Brunson, a veteran of the high school and club games who always does a top notch job.

  The ball girls arrived on time and were briefed, programs were available for the fans, I had the starting line-ups, and we were ahead of schedule.  And there was no rain.  Then the problems started.  Haddonfield AD Lefty Banos had the national anthem on his phone plugged into the stadium amp.  Except it wouldn't play for what seemed like an hour but actually lasted only until, "What so proudly we hailed . . ."  Then there was electronic feedback.  Then when I began announcing Coach Frank Ottinger came running over to scream up to us that the volume was too low and no one could hear us.  Lefty made an adjustment - more blood-curdling screeching.

  The system finally worked, the starters were introduced and the game was underway.  It was another HMHS - West Deptford classic with intense end-to-end play, momentum swings and some controversy.  Haddonfield appeared to have taken the lead in the first three minutes only to see referee John Mauger nullify the goal for offsides.  (She was.)  The the West Deptford fans began complaining loudly about the lines on the field.  They had a point.

  Haddonfield finally notched a goal that counted on a long Olivia Blaber throw in that appeared to go right into the goal.  Which would have meant it did not count because throw-ins are indirect, a rule the visiting fans made a point of calling the the attention of the officials.  But the goal stood and it was 1-0 with 19:31 to play.  (The girls told me after the game that the ball brushed the keeper's fingertips on the way in.)  HMHS increased the advantage 3:36 before intermission when an Eagles defender knocked the ball into her own goal.

   Both teams had chances in the second half and West Deptford came within inches of closing the gap with 36 minutes still to go when a ball rolled just wide right of Haddonfield's goal.  As the game wore on the fog thickened and West Deptford gave its best shot but could not find the back of the net.

   Only two night games this season and this was one.  Next up is Collingswood in three weeks.

Whoosh!! HMHS Girls Breeze Through For Dinner.

SEPT. 20, 2012 -- tonight we learned how team bonding 2012 style works, which is very quickly. 
Last summer Debbie and I had volunteered to host a team dinner and this was the night.  It was over in a flash.  I had forgotten that so many girls could eat so much so quickly. But

I had not hosted a high school event since 1995 when Kirsten was a junior and the team did breakfasts on the morning of game days.  Those were rush affairs as well, but they had to get off to school.  Now the girls do dinner. 

Debbie did an awesome job putting it all together with good food, red and black balloons and soccer ball plates.  The girls began arriving promptly at 6, still in game jerseys after two wins over Gateway, 2-0 by the varsity and 4-0 by JV.  In minutes our house was filled with hungry soccer players for the first time in years, and soon every chair on the deck and patio was taken as pasta and salad were quickly consumed.

Then in the blink of an eyelash it was over.  Thirty-nine minutes after they arrived it was time to go - off to see Heights play Township under the lights.  By 7 p.m. we had the deck to ourselves.

If the girls had as much fun as we did, the evening was a success.

  Tables just waiting to be filled

    Long line for the food.

 

 The deck was filled with hungry and happy soccer players

           And so was the patio.

HMHS defense

   SEPTEMBER 14, 2012 -- Good story in yesterday's Inquirer about The Haddonfield girls soccer team defense.  Although the angle was freshman keeper Taylor Sehdev, the story recognized the contributions of Mary Clair, Bridget Yako, Olivia Blaber and Gretchen Kiep.

   Defense was certainly paramount in Monday's 1-0 win at archrival West Deptford.  It was a typical HMHS-West Deptford contest: big crowd, physical, intense, down to the wire.  Haddonfield scored in the first half when the Eagles's keeper couldn't hold on to the ball and the defense did the rest.  If Sehdev was nervous playing only her second varsity game and her first under the lights, she sure didn't show it.  She made all the plays she had to, including an extended well-timed reach to grab a ball headed for the far upper corner in the first half.

  

If You Can Sing the WNT May Need You

As most fans know by now, Pia Sundhage has decided to take her song and dance routine to her native Sweden.  Sundhage resigned Saturday as coach of the U.S. Women's National Team Saturday to take the same post in  Sweden.  I never met Sundhage, but the reviews have been positive, and it seems she was an improvement over predecessor Greg Ryan. And anyone who sang Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkle to the media couldn't be all bad.

During Sundhage's tenure, which began just a few months after the 2007 World Cup disaster, the U.S. won two Olympic gold medals and a second place at the World Cup.

Not surprisingly, the best story of Sundhage's resignation comes from Jere Longman in today's New York Times.  Note that he refers to the "diva behavior" of keeper Hope Solo.  According to Longman, potential successors include the under-23 women’s national coach Randy Waldrum; the U-20 women’s national coach Steve Swanson; Tony DiCicco, who coached the WNT before; Australia’s national coach, Tom Sermanni; and Jillian Ellis, the director of development for the United States women’s national teams.

He does not say if any of them can sing.

"She Said Yes, Praise the Lord, Glory Hallelujah!" Congrats to Scott & Stevie

I was in the men's room at P.J. Whelihan's Pub in Haddonfield a week ago Friday when my cellphone rang.  It was my favorite male former soccer player and author of the second best blog on the Web, who happens to be my son, Scott, calling to tell me he and girlfriend Stevie Neale, had gotten engaged down in Florida.

Scott was looking for a song to announce the engagement on Facebook, so he came up with a pretty good one: "She Said Yes," by a British folk rock group known as The Wedding Band, a/k/a Mumford and Sons & Friends.  Read the announcement on Scott's blog.

We celebrated the happy occasion in Ocean City a few nights ago, where sister Kirsten welcomed Stevie to the family.  Looking forward to the wedding in early 2013.

The Old Firm Not So Firm

August 13, 2012 -- The Old Firm ain’t what it used to be.  As reported in the New York Times last week, the bankruptcy of one half of the Firm, Glasgow Rangers, has forced that storied club into Scotland’s Third Division and stripped its rivalry with the other half, Glasgow Celtic, of much of its glamor.  Some are worried that the entire Premier League may be threatened.

No one seems sure how the Celtic-Ranger relationship became known as the Old Firm, but the competition dates back to 1888 and the two clubs have played nearly 400 times since then.  For many years the games took on sectarian overtones with the Rangers being the Protestant club and Celtic the Catholic side.  In the ‘60s, when Celtic fans took to chanting, “Cel-tic, cha, cha cha,” Rangers supporters were known to respond, “Curse the Pope.  Cha, cha, cha.”  Sports Illustrated reported in January 1963 that a local joke held that Rangers had more fans because it was easier to say, “Curse the Pope,” than “Curse the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.”

Violence was an unfortunate by-product of the intensity of the teams’ fans.  In 1980 opposing fans fought on the field after Celtic won a 1-0 Cup final.

On Saturday Debbie and I saw half of the Old Firm – Celtic – play in a lackluster friendly against Real Madrid at the Linc in Philadelphia.  Real won, 2-0, but neither team's play was inspiring and the match had all the intensity of the NHL all-star game.  Fans would have rioted had Cristiano Ronaldo not played at all, but he seemed to go through the motions for the 58 or so minutes he was on the field.

The crowd was reported at 34,018 but seemed less.  Marc Narducci reported for The Inquirer and told me he thought “some of these friendlies have run their course.”  You can’t blame the teams.  Just as the MLB teams do in spring training, they are concerned with tuning up for their upcoming season by getting some fitness under match conditions for some players, trying out some new players and just getting some touches on the ball for others.

Real led 1-0 at the half on a goal by Jose Maria Callejon and I asked a Celtic fan if he thought his team had played awful in the first half.  He assured me they were a second half club, but they were only marginally better in the last 45 minutes.  But in fairness to Celtic, they had just played in Sweden three nights earlier and six key players did not make the trip across the ocean, giving an idea of how unimportant the game was to them

There was a scary moment in the 72^nd minute when young Dylan McGeouch collided hard with Madrid’s Nuri Sahin and lay motionless on the field for five minutes before being carried off on a stretcher and taken to a hospital.  It was reported on the team’s website Sunday that he suffered a broken jaw but would travel back to Scotland with the team.

With the Gold At Stake, Who Else But Carli Lloyd?

   It's now been eight years since someone not named Carli Lloyd scored for the United States in the women's Olympic gold medal game.  After notching the lone goal in the 1-0 overtime win against Brazil in 2008, Lloyd today accounted for all the American scoring in a tense 2-1 victory over Japan.

   The match was played before 80,203 at the hallowed Wembley Stadium in London.  It was the fourth gold for the United States in five tournaments.

   Lloyd got the U.S. off to a quick start by heading in a ball in the 8th minute.  Former U.S. men's coach Bob Bradley gave this analysis in the New York Times.  The U.S. dodged a bullet in the 27th minute when Tobin Heath appeared to handle the ball in the box.  But the referee declined to call he penalty.

   Nine minutes into the second half Lloyd scored what proved to be the game winner from 20 yards.  Fer her efforts she was named the Bud Light woman of the match.  After not starting the opener against France Lloyd came off the bench when Shannon Boxx was injured and scored the ultimate game winner, then tallied another goal against Columbia before her heroics today. 

   I was at work and followed the game on both the U.S. Soccer and the Times website.  While the Times does an excellent job covering soccer, it had some trouble with Lloyd''s first goal.  First it reported that Abby Wambach scored it, then said it was Boxx before finally naming Lloyd as the scorer.  But who else would score for the U.S. in the gold medal game?