ICC-Chatham Girls Game

Tomorrow I'll take a look at the Girl's game results from Monday and Wednesday but for now I'll just talk about the game I saw today. I'm sure a lot of you are thinking, you just went to the boys match up last night and so far you've covered nothing but ICC. Well the boys games was an important early season battle and on the girls side it was the same thing. As for being at all these ICC games, well they are very close to where I live and so far there just have not been any other contests that have struck my interest enough to head that way. The closest thing to it was the Chatham-Cairo boys game that I couldn't make. Nothing will change tomorrow either as I'll probably head out to ICC again to watch the boys play Maple Hill under the lights.

Ok so a lot of talking down, now onto the important stuff, the actual game! It was an interesting match up, on paper ICC was much better and Chatham was just too young. Although keep in mind ICC is pretty young too. A lot of the contest seemed sloppy to the naked eye, but I'm not convinced, there were a lot of individual players showing some excellent one on one skill just doing little things. Really shows you how far the girl's game has come even at the local level thanks to youth programs. Both teams attempted to play to feet and control the ball but the midfields for both teams did a nice job.

I couldn't help but feel as though Chatham was outplaying ICC and playing with more urgency but that the Riders had more talent on the field and should win the game. As the game went on more and more I saw that talent on the field doesn't always translate if you aren't giving it your all, which Chatham was.

A missed clearance by ICC, a loose ball and Taylor Wenk netted the first goal for Chatham, a foul in the box later in the game resulted in a PK and a 2-0 lead for the Panthers. As the game continued on the Riders fought back and played with more urgency and was able to draw even and send the game to OT.

In the first OT the Riders scored twice, at least one by Morgan Van Alstyne who I believe scored 2 if my memory serves me.

It was a tough loss for Chatham who were up 2 goals and seemed in command but it's a young squad, if they can take this loss as a positive and build on it they could be really good by the end of the season. Sometimes a loss like this can sink your season as well, let's hope that's not the way things go for this team.

For the Riders, I'm sure it wasn't the way they wanted to win it, but a win is a win so they will take it. With Maple Hill and Greenville both looking very strong a draw or loss her was the last thing the Riders needed.

Both keepers were solid although neither did anything spectacular. Brittany Lossow for Chatham came through with one save when it was still 2-0 that I thought would stop ICC dead in their tracks and end any comeback thoughts. I thought Regina Behn was pretty good in the mid for Chatham but needed to pass one touch earlier to set up her teammates. Their sweeper, sophomore Vicky Bemiss did a nice job keeping their defense out of danger, at least for the most part and had a big foot. It was tough to pick out the top players for the Riders because they just didn't have it today. I know the players to watch out for...Powers, Ooms, Barry, Van Alstyne, Armstrong but other than some nice footwork by Ooms in the first half and Van Alstyne finishing the game well I thought they were sleep walking a little bit. That team has too much talent to play like that and hopefully them pulling out this win doesn't allow them to think they can do that again against the likes of MH or Greenville.