The Saints traveled to Exeter today on the same bus as the JV Girls team.
It was clash day at School so the
team came off the bus looking truly like the rag tag bunch that it really is.
If this bench looks like their rooms then I feel for all the Parents.
Game Captain and Birthday boy Owen
Cook went out to represent the team for the coin toss.
The Ref explained the toss and then Owen lost and the Ref
gave the choice to Exeter. Little did we know what was a stake in losing
the toss. Maybe Owen wasn't paying attention.
The Saints started out with their successful defense of Matt Roginski as Stopper, Nick Blunier and Tom Gibney as Fullbacks and Mark Miller as Sweeper. Midfielders Taylor "T-Mac" MacDonald, Ryan Price, Keith Hallock and Sean Waters. Tom Carroll and Owen Cook as strikers. Colin McBride was in the net for St. Thomas
Gibney prepares to send out a ball stolen from an Exeter attacker.
St. Thomas defends against a corner kick.
Owen takes time to tie his shoe during the game.
10 minutes into the game the strikers were switched as Peter Bergeron and Peter Shwaegerle went in. The Midfield was changed up to Bryan Hennigan, Justin Guilbert, Jamie and Jerry Phontharaksa.
Andy Stone went in at midfield at the 25 minute mark and a few minutes later Linas Kenter and Brent Snyder went in as strikers.
Gibney sends the ball back to Waters in support after making an offensive attack.
Every time St. Thomas was about to shoot or take a corner kick one of the Exeter fans would blow a load air horn to try and make them miss. this happened quite a bit in the first half and neither the referees nor the Exeter coach did anything about it.
At 30:05 into the half Tom Gibney received a yellow card for what appeared to be a fair slide tackle. Jamie Phontharaksa went in for fullback for Gibney. This was frustrating as the one sided calling was piling up against the Saints.
At half time the score was 0-0
with St. Thomas out shooting Exeter 9-5.
During the halftime strategy session Coach changed the formation to a 4-5-1 with five midfielders to better control the center of play. Coach also talked to the players about not letting the poor sportsmanship of the " air-horn" and "whistle blowing" Exeter fans or the seemingly poor calls of the referees to take them off their game plans.
The Second half started with Cook as the loan striker. Midfielders Hennigan, Guilbert, Stone, and the Phontharaksa brothers. The defense was back to Miller, Roginski, Blunier and Gibney.
At 48:27 Jerry Phontharaksa sent a pass to Andy Stone who put it by the Exeter keeper to give the Saints a 1-0 lead.
Stone and Phontharaksa come out after scoring what turns out to be the winning goal.
Hallock makes a play using his head.
At 58:46 Waters showed some great hustle to chase a ball to the Exeter goal line and touch it off their player to win a corner kick. Waters took a beautiful corner kick and Price jumped up to head the ball just wide of the post.
MacDonald works to break up an Exeter attack.
At 67:42 Hallock received a yellow card as he was cautioned for unsporting play. Of course it appeared to us that the Exeter player hit him just as hard as they fought for the ball.
Price moves to mark up an Exeter Player on a throw-in.
The game ended with the final score St. Thomas 1 - Exeter 0. Colin McBride picked up his second shut-out with a great performance in net. The Saints out shot Exeter 20-12. While I am not one to complain about the Referees it appeared that this game was called in a very one sided manor. St. Thomas was called for 16 fouls to Exeter's 6, 6 off sides to Exeter's 0 and received 2 cautions. I honestly thought it was a well played game and would have been more exciting if the Referees just let the kids play and maybe brushed up on their off-sides rule.
St. Thomas travels to Souhegan on Tuesday.