Game 21: State Finals vs. JC Harmon

8 November 2014 vs. JC Harmon in the State Finals at CBAC (6-0)

Well, it all ended as we had planned from the first days of summer camp when Brown and Holland started hitting around the "Defend the Ship" idea.  And defend we did.

The boys did such a good job of dismantling Harmon's talented roster as they simply stood player after player up steering them into the next defender all day long. Harmon launched 4 shots the entire match. 

We also did well on the second "D"—deadballs. We finished 3 more today.  

What got the whole thing started, though, was the early goal, as taking the lead in this one would affect all that was to follow. And that first goal was just some great individual striker player by the Norwegian Bandit, just 8 minutes into the match.

And then came that second D: the deadballs.  Just a minute or so later, Johnston lofted a free kick towards the back post. Lucas Bartlett headed it down and across toward the back post. With Kutey's perfect frame, it became 2-0, quickly.

We ran another great long free kick less than a minute later that Bartlett finished back post that seemed to spell GAME OVER, but it correctly was ruled as offsides (as the video confirms.) That call seemed to fire up Harmon, and we just battled to the end of the first half when Harmon scored a goal with 3 seconds to go, but that also was ruled offsides (video does confirm that was a good call as well (hey maybe the refs know what they are doing).) So wow did momentum swing big a couple of times during that first half.

We settled in again after half, continuing to play very good defense where we did not dive in on their talented group, but just to defend as a team, making use of our primary, secondary, and tertiary defenders. Goals 3 and 4 came fairly early in the second half, both on set pieces.

So no there wasn't a lot of drama in the finals. (Maybe we needed a year off from drama after last year's final.) Our seniors knew where the destination was, and they kept us headed in that direction all season.  It was a business like morning with much the same in the afternoon. Not a lot of 6-0 finals come along.

STATS:

First Half: Saints: Shots: 10 (2) Corners: 0

32:03 Nilsen (Lasse strips the defender and niftily moves to goal)

31:37 Kutey (Bartlett squares Jay's long deadball with his head)

Harmon: Shots 1 (0) Corners: 0

Second Half: Shots: 7 (4) Corners: 0

29:31 Skevington (Heying lofts the free kick)

26:30 Kutey (Jay and Matthew run 11 that gets Jay's loft on to a Younger head drive)

2:13 Nilsen (Jay pushes it through for a great Nilsen first touch into a shot)

1:15 Feuerborn (Kutey through ball)

Harmon: Shots: 3 (3) Corners 0

Noteworthy stuff: 1. Derek Engel finished with another shutout (15 for the season! with a goals-against of .566) 2. Considering the final score and our game plan the fact that for the first time in years we finished with 0 corner kicks seems whacked. 3) Yes, Luke Kutey and Lasse Nilsen both had two goals each in the state final, but Jay Johnston rang up a hat trick in assists. 4) Joseph Skevington scored a goal in each of the final-four matches. 5) We say good-bye to 14 seniors: Michael Velasco, Nick D'Adamo, Luke Kutey, Lasse Nilsen, Seth Castinado, Danny Geist, Tony Schiltz, Matthew Holland, Matthew Brown, Jay Johnston, Kevin Feuerborn, Derek Engel, Blake Heying and Matthew McCrave. (Man, that is some serious replacing to do.)

KC Star Write-up of State Finals

The Dog Pile (Did we invent that?)

Bartlett's Video Tribute

KC STAR Wrap

2014 Video Playoff Run