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Taking advantage

With his team leading 19-18, Smith turned to his teammate, Cowboy Bill, as they stood on the sidelines, and predicted Sunday's seesaw game, in which each team had battled back from deficits then squandered their hard-fought advantage, would end with "an ugly one." Moments later, his sinking blast from behind his own goal line eluded Twizzler's glove and pads, sealing the win, 20-18.

"That was sweet," said Smith of his game winner that was more comic relief than highlight reel material.

"When you get a tight game like this, you know you're never going to get anything pretty," said Cowboy Bill. "The last few goals were just real ugly, mucking it up."

Indeed, the fortunes of each team in Sunday's game seemed to turn on less than perfect plays. After building an early advantage, Smith and his mates suddenly saw their clearing passes bounce off fence posts or a teammate's shins straight to opponents' sticks. And when those sticks are being held by the likes of Lak Attack, Doo and Elvis, lucky bounces usually turn into goals.

But even as his team found itself on the short end of a 12-9 score, Cowboy Bill remained confident.

"It's a 20-goal game, so you know they're bound to get a couple in a row," said the veteran winger. "We're bound to get some bounces come our way too. You've just got to stick with your gameplan because you know they're not going to get 20 good bounces."

In fact, the bounces started coming their way, including an unlikely goal by Smith who had to first deke around a teammate's stick in the crease before roofing a shot past a stunned Twizzler.

Smith and his mates also had the advantage of an extra player, giving their team two set lines. That allowed players to develop chemistry, and get a few precious extra moments of rest between shifts.

"With two set lines, you don't end up with that guy who's really tired," said Smith, as his side scored five unanswered goals to reclaim the lead, 14-12. "We had a couple of good lines, we had some real good chemistry."

"The combinations were good," said Cowboy Bill. "We always had three fresh sets of legs out there, but with those guys rotating, they're always going to have one or two guys out there who are tired. I think in the end, that helped us out quite a bit."

Posted by jaysuburb at March 8, 2009 09:03 PM