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Turning the tide

Taking advantage of a green goaltender, Doo and his mates rolled to an easy 16-10 lead, then almost let it slip away. But a timely goal by the skilled speedster with the margin down to two propelled his side to a decisive 20-14 win in Sunday's game.

Led by Franz Beckenbauer's adept touch around the net and knack for knocking bouncing balls out of mid air, the favourites seemed to have the first rainy game of the season well in hand. The Colonel, making his first start between the pipes last year, replacing the absent Chico, seemed bamboozled by rebounds rolling at his feet, overwhelmed by the shots raining in on him. Lapses by his defense frustrated him.

"We got a lot of friendly bounces early on," said Beckenbauer, who scored a handful of seemingly improbable goals to stake his side to an enormous edge on the scoreboard, including a 5-1 run in the second period. "We got lots of shots, got traffic in front of the net, and just banged it around at the goalie's feet."

"We were getting to the loose balls real quick," said Bam Bam, of his team's total control of the game's early periods. "With a new goalie you just try to get as many shots early, and I think we did that pretty well."

But just as his side was starting to think of a possible road hockey shutout for their goalie, Twizzler, who has yet to lose in three starts this season, the wheels started to come off. Four straight goals swung the momentum to the underdogs, and they were hungry for more, pressing in the offensive zone relentlessly.

"We saw it coming," said Doo. "They started playing harder, they started coming on."

"Once we got the scoring advantage, I think we just let up," said Bam Bam. "We weren't running, we weren't going for loose balls, we were using our teammates as passing options, we were all trying to do it ourselves."

But it was a determined solo effort by Doo that reversed the trend, as he chopped a breakaway goal past Colonel's glove, to spark four unanswered goals to close out the victory.

"We really needed a big goal to get our heads back in the game, " said Doo of his determined effort. "We had to step it up a bit, but we couldn't get anything done because of our sense of panic. That goal calmed us down a bit."

"They had a run going on and the first thing you have to do is put an end to it, dampen their spirits," said Beckenbauer.

"Obviously we didn't play our A game,"' said Bam Bam. "Doo kinda rallied us back into it."

Posted by jaysuburb at October 30, 2011 07:46 PM