View from the 18: Week 10

It was another warm night on photo day for our Wolves MR2 team as they took on a very young and athletic Ottawa City squad at Pinecrest Park. This game had a quick pace with lots of ‘WOW…did he just do that?’ moments. The first team to break the goose egg was Ottawa City. Being behind 1-0 didn’t phase our Wolves. They kept at it and generated many scoring opportunities before finally potting the equalizer on a goal-mouth scramble. Thanks to our striker Osigwe Erua for following the play and his efforts on that final touch! Both teams exchanged some scoring chances, but our keeper, Will McNair stood tall and thwarted all comers. Neither team was able to get another past the touch line before the final whistle..

Wolves MR2 Striker, Osigwe Erua

This was the first time I’ve observed our full MR2 team in action and I was proud of how they conducted themselves

It was a fair, clean, well-played match!

Team manager, Jahleel Baay was nominated their ‘Player of the Game’ for his persistence
with the ball on the pitch, and calming leadership, off of it!

I asked you all if you were happy with how we played in our first half, and you answered with a resounding ‘NO’!

And you backed your vocal conviction with action and a complete 180-degree performance in the second half.

We gave them ‘HOPE’ in that 1st half. Then we managed to rearrange, added a few letters, and changed that to ‘CHOKE’! We then built on our goal total with several heads-up plays. Notably, Carlo Zito’s winning goal, and Kevin Pereira, who went hard to the net twice, and after failing to score on his first attempt, stuck with it and scored a dagger that sunk their expectations of getting back into this match.

On a night when our back line was cobbled together, we welcomed back a familiar face, Reda Ghazal who slotted himself seamlessly. Our CBs Dennis Voltchek and Ahmed Rashid were amazing. As well, Matteo Zito and Alonso Gartner, who both provided strong support when needed.

Our wingers….when we said say ‘GO‘, they reacted with energy, that was welcomed and admired. Thank you Kevin Ridgway, Samuel Wells, Stefano Giamberadino, and Kevin P.. 

We played a 2nd half that we should be thrilled with.  We managed to turn our first half FROWN upside down!

We currently sit in first place in our division.

This was CM Kian Yamada’s last game with us this season. Seen here with his father Mitsuo, who happens to play on our Wolves OT5 team. We truly appreciate his dedication and effort towards our success this season.

We’ve been spoiled with having a center mid-field that consists of Hardy Nunez de la Torre, Kian, Diego Gartner, and Ian Alexander. After Hardy’s injury, Joe Catanzariti made his presence known. Thank you for that! 

We are grateful to Hardy and Matteo for the cold bevies and to Frankie Paravan for taking our team photos. To our sideline support…Tony, Moe, Christina, and Kian’s parents. 

Our ‘Players of the Game’. The aforementioned recognition for these 3 shouldn’t go unnoticed. Congratulations to all of you. The celebratory song of choice, chosen by Carlo Z., was ‘Shaboozey – A Bar Song’! 

Supporting our Game Officials!

With the sound of the first whistle, the match started and took shape with some great passes, though initially, the Wolves, having had a BYE week,  struggled to regain their playing form, but with some strong on-field leadership, the team’s play significantly improved.  Ball movement was strong, and one could say that a distinctive style of play was being witnessed after nearly 7 weeks and as the match continued even into the second half it only improved one would say, it was perhaps our best performance to date despite our strong record (winning is one thing, how you play to win is another).  Our Wolves were clicking.  We created many scoring chances, but OSU’s Keeper would make one save after another and one could argue was their man of the match, not only for his play but for his character.  After 45 minutes of play, Wolves were up 1-0 on a late half (heads up) goal by Andrew Specogna that looked more like a pass but surprised everyone with a beautiful kick into their net that soared over their Keeper when he was forced to come-out of his net.
The second half started as the first half ended, strong play with many scoring opportunities (though admittingly, Tony Zito’s halftime pep talk did refocus our group). Unfortunately, the other 3 goals in the second half would come toward the last 20 minutes of the match which prior to the goals would see our Peruvian Import, Alonso Gartner miss a near record 6 clean scoring opportunities to finally break the curse with a header and at that point the flood gates opened with goals from Jefferson Daughtery and Bill McIntyre.  However, we must mention the strong defensive play of the Wolves backline, they were strong, and vocal.  Notable performances by CB Gerry Valente  who despite being the second shortest player on the team, played like a giant by being first on tackles and first on clearances against OSU’s two tallest players.  When it wasn’t Gerry defending them, it was Domenic Mafrici taunting them for some of their attempts to get calls in their favours.  In a game where size doesn’t matter (some may argue size matters!), it was the backlines big hearts and discipline that created the opportunities for the midfield to move the ball to the attackers and create the much-needed scoring opportunities.

Our Keeper (that would be me!) had a relatively quiet evening having only to catch a ball and kick-out a few passes.

With this victory, we currently sit at the top of the table in our division.

Following the match, the Wolves all agreed that this was perhaps their best played match against a disciplined OSU side that was unfortunately unable to create opportunities.  As talk of the match passed, it was replaced with whether Van Halen was better with David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar as lead vocalist…there was a general consensus that Sammy was the better lead.