Some rivalries are born of the skill of the competitor where a win gives a glimpse of greatness.  Other rivalries are born of time and proximity.  In this case, it is as if a section of the Katy Freeway acts as a great balance scale tipping the weight of pride and bragging rights one way or the other.  Of course, some may view the analogy more like a fat kid sitting on one end of a teeter-totter.  And yet with that rivalry comes the sense that a win must be accompanied with an appropriate level of dignity and decorum …  STRATFORD BEATS MEMORIAL! STRATFORD BEATS MEMORIAL!  Whaaaaaaaaa! (Running around the dining room table.)  STRATFORD BEATS MEMORIAL!  Yes, you heard correctly, our Never Say Die Spartans pulled out a soul-wrenching 4 – 3 victory against that High School Down the Freeway.  The game was delayed one day due to winter rains and moved to Tully. The venue change having the effect of negating the opponent’s home field advantage given the number of times the Spartans have played there recently.

Memorial had the kickoff going North against with wind.  Within the first 20 seconds, Memorial launched a long missile off the right side that was wide.  And within the first minute, forced a save by Nick Hay off a header attempt.  But it was the Spartans that scored first.  At 3 minutes in, Stratford managed a 3 on 2 advantage causing the goal to come out to challenge.  The goalie deflected the shot which bounced right in front of the Memorial goal.  Memorial’s attempt to clear went to Will Emerson who drove it home for the score.  Memorial initially managed to put some pressure on Stratford either with fast-break style runs or by spreading play out in the offensive end.   But as the half went on, Stratford seemed to take Memorial out of its game with inspired play on both ends of the field.  Time of possession balanced out in the half’s last 10 minutes, but Memorial did not get good chances as Stratford was too often on the end of Memorial’s passes.  With a little over 2 minutes in the half, Patrick Ndaye corralled a looping ball at the middle of the Memorial end.  He pushed a nice pass to Thomaso Maule on the right side who immediately passed it back to center.  Hamdan Al-Tuma caught the ball on the volley with a beautiful arching shot over the goalie into the left side of the goal for the second Stratford goal. The half ended with Spartans up 2 – 0.

You can not blame the Stratford faithful thinking that the match was likely in the bag at this point.  That contented feeling seemed only 40 minutes away.  But the Soccer Gods were not to be cooperative that evening. As if saying “Regardless of the outcome of this game Stratford fans, you shall have your soul ripped out and kicked up and down the field a few times, replaced in your chest with a cheery ‘Have a nice day.’”.  That is what it was like gentle reader.  Memorial came back in the second half with two goals in the first five minutes.    The first was a successful penalty shot due to Stratford hand ball that came after an unfortunate bounce.  The second was another tough bounce from a deflected shot that ended up with a Memorial player behind the defense and a 1 on 1 with the Stratford goalie.  Memorial scored again 7 minutes later with a nice shot from about 25 yards out that caught the upper left corner of the goal, no chance.  Fortunately, our souls were restored with the ensuing kickoff which went directly back to Milan Jokic.  Milan launched an exquisite 50-yard pass to Francies Galdino who was racing down the left side.  Francies out-ran the defense to get possession and deftly lifted a shot over the oncoming goalie to tie the game at 3 – 3.  Your humble reporter will have to admit that a tie was looking pretty attractive at this point.  Fortunately, our Spartan players had a different idea.  Over the next 20 minutes, Stratford had no less than 10 combinations of shots on goal, corner kicks and free kicks in the Memorial end.  This included one shot on goal that put the Memorial goalie’s entire body in the goal, with the ball held out only with his outstretched arms, at least as far as we could tell.  But like that shot, this was all for naught as the emotional roller coaster ride continued.  Finally, with just over 5 minutes left in the game, Thommaso Maule took a pass on the right side and fed an arching feed to Francies Galdino coming in from the left.  Francies managed to guide a low angle shot past the goalie into the right-side netting of the goal.  Stratford goes up 4 – 3 and the rest of the game was keeping our souls intact and Memorial from any meaningful chances.

Whew! By this time, you can imagine the Stratford faithful were ready for a nice routine game vs the visiting Cypress Fairbanks Bobcats on Friday, January 31 st.  Cy-Fair demonstrated a disciplined passing game but also used a stand-off low-pressure defense that Stratford can do well against.  This defense ended up being effective, at least in the first half, as the Stratford offense was a little like soda pop with the fizz gone.  The Spartans played a good game of moving the ball around and dominated time of possession, but they just were not able to connect enough consecutive to threaten with a score.  But the dominance of possession kept Cy Fair in check.  The half ended with the score tied at 0 – 0.

The balance was soon to change, however.  With less than 5 minutes expended, Sam Cohen arched a high pass from about yards out that reached Patrick Ndaye behind the defense on the left side.  He made a quick move with the ball to the right, but as the goalie came out to challenge, Patrick flicked the ball back to the left with the back of his foot into the open goal.  It was an instant and amazing assessment of ball, foot and defender position to put the fizz back in the pop.  About 12 minutes later, a high pass was made deep into the Cy-Fair end with Francies Galdino giving chase with two defenders.  One of the defenders attempted to head the ball back to the goalie.  But there was not enough pace for the distance and Francies was able to intercept the ball.  Francies made a quick move to the right, leaving the goalie in his wake, and filled a wide-open goal with a score to go up 2 – 0.  The final score of the game came with less than four minutes left.  Sam Cohen was on the right side just outside the penalty area.  He took a pass from the left, made a quick move to his left and lifted a left-footed rainbow up and to the left of the goalie.  That was about all that was left.  Cy-Fair managed to get a couple of corner kicks before the game ended with our Spartans the winners 3 – 0.

Play continues with an away game against Cypress Falls on Feb 4th and a home game against Jersey Village on February 7th.  See you at the pitch!