November 9, 2002
Memphis Shock vs. Spartans

In the first round of the Challenge Cup, we were facing the Spartans. Given the Spartans record in D1, we thought that we might’ve had a chance against them. If not, we just wanted to have a good showing. Game day conditions were in the mid 60’s, with wind gusting up in the 30 mph range, and soft pitch conditions.

We started the game off with about 4 subs. We were playing well until the Spartans got a goal against the run of play. Instead of trying to run this out, Spartans thumped us to a score of 5-0.

We did have a couple chances on goal. Dennis had 2 shots blocked by defenders in the first half. A couple other shots in the 2nd half were saved by the keeper. In the dying seconds of the game, Matt settled a long pass and his shot dinged off the left post. The follow up shot was blocked by another Spartan defender and then the game was over. On the play, Matt landed wrong and had him hip pop out of joint. Billy came over and popped it back into place for him. All of this action while the refs were walking away. Good job making sure everyone is ok ref!

Good thing this game didn’t mean anything as far as for the D2 season. The Spartans completely beat us. Very rarely were we able to mount a threat. The Spartans were able to get us off our game, and kill us with short passes. Not to mention the guy who scored all their goals played with the West Ham United Juniors team of the EPL. So he’s pretty good. We just plain got beat.

One thing that happened this game which hurt us as a team was a few players got a little upset, and started bickering at other players. Basically, we self destructed from within. When that happens during a game, for any team, things will go downhill. That happened to us today.

Dennis Thompson