Stratford had a bye on Tuesday, Feb 11 for the usual away game and the home game was played with a noon start on Saturday, Feb 15 th.  After their win, Spring Woods chants of “We’re in second place, we’re in second place, …” were indicative of the mission mentality the team has taken on.  Fortunately, despite the loss, our fighting Spartans are the first-place team that is the back story of their chant.  The main factor in the 3 – 1 score was the time of possession that Spring Woods was able to secure throughout the game.  Stratford managed only eight real scoring opportunities in total.  And their only connection came off a Milan Jokic penalty shot in the second half due to an opponent hand-ball in the penalty area.  Stratford simply had too many passes that did not connect to a teammate and an occasional habit of just kicking the ball downfield without an eye for maintaining possession.  But Stratford kept up the energy throughout the game and it was not until a Spring Woods goal with ten minutes left in the game to go up 3 – 0 that a positive outcome looked to be out of reach.  One of Stratford’s better chances in the first half was off a free kick from Milan Jokic that caught an open Will Emerson right in front of the goal.  But the pass came in high and the ball went out for a goal kick as Will attempted to get it under control.  Another chance came with a pass from Hamdan Al-Tuma to Will Emerson again in front of the goal, but his header was high over the crossbar.  Just into the second half, Stratford made the connection on several consecutive passes to get the ball close to the goal on the right side, but the shot was high. With 8 minutes in the game, Francies Galdino made an impressive individual run up the right side and managed to get all the way to the end line by hopping three times over Spring Woods defenders.  At that point, he got mugged, but it was called out for a Stratford corner.  Okay with the benefit of the game video being posted, it looks like it was a solid Spring Woods tackle that just ended in a pile of bodies.  Stratford got two corner kicks out of the ensuing play but was not able to connect on either.

That about wraps it up for this week soccer fans.  Our Spartans get back to a normal schedule next week with an away game against Cypress Ridge on Tues Feb 18 and a home game on Friday, February 21 st against Cypress Creek.  See you at the pitch!