May 13, 2001
Memphis Shock vs Arsenal

At the start off today’s game Arsenal was short a player. We were gonna start 1 short but yelled at Chris to get out there to get in defense. We started the game off quickly just how we had planned it, pressuring their goal. The first good chance for a goal came just over 10 minutes into the game when Sharp was running along the right side of the field and sent a ball to the middle of the box. Dennis jumped up and headed the ball that the keeper knocked up in the air and caught on the way down. A few minutes later we finally broke through. Ryan won a ball in midfield and sent the ball to the right to Bishop. By Bishop’s own account; “I dribbled down to about 25 yards out. I was trying to cross the ball to the back post, but kicked it wrong and it was a shot. The goalie went up to grab it but he mishandled it and bobbled it in the goal.” Memphis Shock up 1-0. Minutes after that we won a corner kick taken from the left side of the field. Sharp kicked a curling ball that the newly bearded Micah skyed for and headed in for our second goal. Shock 2-0.

At this time Arsenal had their only decent shot on goal. From about 30 yards out one of their guys took an ADAM shot that went straight to Baxter. Due to Arsenal being a player short, and then beating down sun, they would every now and then get some water to drink. One of their players got a yellow for going off and not asking the ref to come back in the field of play. The ref told him to go off the field for 5 minutes. The Arsenal coach informed the ref that that rule was changed a few seasons ago. He was right, unless there is some other kind of rule stating if you were short guys they had to go off.

Back to the game. With roughly 10 minutes left in the half, Winters played the best minute of his career. From a loose ball, Barrett ran it down and sent it up to Winters. He in turn passed it off to the right to Bishop, who pushed his man down, and did some slow dribbling into the goalie box. Due to the extreme angle he was coming from he touched the ball to Winters who side footed the ball to the keepers left into the goal. Shock 3-0. On the ensuing kickoff, the ball was passed back to a defender. He passed it up to the midfielder on Winters side. Winters battled with the midfielder causing him to loose control. Dennis picked up the remains and chipped the ball up to Winters. Winters took a couple of easy dribbles, and then took off. From the 18 yard line he shot the ball just inside the post hitting the back of the net. Shock 4-0.

At halftime we knew we had the upper hand being up by 4 goals and 45 minutes away from the D4 Championship. Spirits were high.

Starting the half we made some changes in positions. We started putting defenders up front. After quite a lot of play on the right side of the field, Bishop kicked a bouncing ball high up in the air toward the box that the keeper caught. For some strange reason he rolled the ball out like a bowling ball, which he was doing all game long. An Arsenal defender tried to clear the ball but didn’t get all of it. Sharp chested the ball down and took a side volley shot that went inches over the keeper for a beautiful goal. Shock 5-0.

A regular defender Tyler was playing up front, and he had a couple of chances on goal. His best chance came off of a corner kick that went straight to the keeper. Many of our shots, even ones not on goal, went right across the goal mouth. Later in this half Barrett had a string of 3 straight headers. The first went out of bounds, second straight up, and the third out of bounds. After the latter, he fell over as if he was a drunk who was heading soccer balls. Sad fact is, it was true. But if was also pretty funny the way he fell over and seemed to pass out.

Around halfway into the half, Barrett got a loose ball and sent it to the middle to Cam. Cam sent the ball up to the right corner for Bishop. Bishop one timed a center that went over the jumping goalies outstretched arms that found the head of Nathan. Nathan headed the ball in for another goal. Shock 6-0. A few minutes after this we made a keeper change. Baxter came out and Bishop went in goal. Baxter had taken an interest in the game being played on the field behind ours. He saw everyone running around and wanted to do so himself.

With 15 minutes left in the game, Micah took a throw in that went to Chris. Chris turned to the inside on a nifty little head flick and was dribbling towards the goal. He passed the ball in the center to Baxter. Baxter slipped while trying to stop leaving the ball for Dennis to get. He stole the ball from a defender, and then got a boot from the sweeper in the stomach. Since it was just a glance he kept going. He shot the ball which the keeper just got a hand on. The ball landed a foot behind the keeper and spun to his left. Chris was there to follow up on the shot. Just before the keeper ran into him, he took a shot that went across the goal that hit the left post. The ball bounced off the post to Nathan who buried it. Shock 7-0.

Getting the chance to run around a little, Baxter made a few spirited runs. On one of his more humorous runs, he juked out some dude, and then tried to run backwards. With his big stature, he has more momentum that smaller players. I think he figured this out when getting turned around he hit the ground, followed by a few laughs and a comment from the spectators “Baxter, you big goon!” He made up for it on this next play though. On probably Arsenals best chance for a shot on goal, Ryan was guarding man-to-man an enemy at the 18. After a few seconds of containing, Tyler came over to help him out prompting the Arsenal player to try to center the ball. Winters headed the centered ball out. After a bounce Dennis headed the ball up to Baxter that split 2 Arsenal players. Baxter took the ball and was off to the races with Jordan to his left. When he got about 20 yards out he got out of control and fell with the keeper trying to cut off the angle. Before he fell he touched it off to the side to Jordan. Jordan was running full stride the whole time and touched the ball into the net for the final goal of the game. Baxter and Jordan hugged. Shock up 8-nil.

2 minutes later the ref blew the final whistle making it official that we were D4 CHAMPIONS. There was happiness.

Its hard to put into words how well we played today. After our sloppy play against Arirang, we came back and showed what we were about. The first half we played well, but our passing wasn’t too crisp. The second half, there were times when we pulled off 6-7 passes in a row. Even on deflected balls, we were right there. We also had countless shots in both halves that went for the back post that just missed. Still other shots off target were just inches off. Although some guys names aren’t in the box score, they still contributed. This game we played more like a team than we had in a while. We passed well, talked well, even subbed well.

Our defense, well you can’t say anything bad about them. 6 shutouts, 5 goals against the first 3 games, 1 against the last 7. I’m not complaining. Baxter has done a good job with them, and they have responded by making his life easy back there. Midfield has done a great job this year, hustling and being everywhere. Not to mention the extra job they have helping the defense and forwards. Forwards have had a good year also. Although we have had a hard time scoring this year, they kept constant pressure on defense and keepers.

After the possibility of not having a team this year, I think we have done a good job recovering. We didn’t have a full team until 2 weeks before the season started. Many players left suddenly due to the Challenge Cup getting postponed so much leaving us just over a month to get a team together. So thanks to the guys who left, they allowed new guys to come in and help us win the division.

Our team is on an 11 game division unbeaten streak, with our last loss coming to Arsenal in our next to last game last season. Our only loss this year was to the Challenge Cup runners-up and D1 team The Town. So far this year our record is 8-1-2. We hope to end the year 10-1-2 with a win in the D4 tournament to win the unofficial double. Next season we will be in D3. With the team we have now, we should be competitive in D3. Great season to everyone!!!!!!!!!

Dennis Thompson