From Coach Ed Berberich: The Soccer Aces were back at home Saturday hosting the Harrisburg Bulldogs, a game they would end up losing 7-2 despite putting up a strong fight. The Bulldogs scored first in the 5th minute, but the Aces got the equalizer 14 minutes later when Ty Hipsher slotted a free kick into goal from approximately 35 yards out. Harrisburg would regain the lead 8 minutes later and the half almost ended with the Aces down just 1, but the Bulldogs were able to get their 3rd goal with 30 seconds left in the 1st half to make it 1-3. The Aces then pulled back within 1 goal 5 minutes into the 2nd half when Wyatt Howder scored on an assist from Wyatt Rooney to make it 2-3. Harrisburg secured a little bit of breathing room when they scored in the 52nd minute to put the score at 2-4. That's how the game remained until the Bulldogs scored 3 goals late to finish it off with the 2-7 final score. For the match the Aces took 7 shots on goal, 4 on frame, they had 3 chances created & 4 interceptions. Michael Read had 8 saves in goal. Harrisburg took 18 shots on goal, 10 on frame.
The guys played their best match of the season before starting to wear down midway through the 2nd half. This was a conditioning loss for us, as we were in this game until we ran out of gas in the 2nd. We've had some injuries & sicknesses hit us in the past couple games. The we lost another player for the match in the 1st half, but these things happen & it just drives home how important the summer conditioning program is. When you start losing players for whatever reason then the ones still standing need to be able to play all 80 minutes if need be. Some of the guys can do it but we're not all there yet, so we're still playing ourselves into shape overall. But outside of all that, we coaches were really proud of the way the guys played today. Most of the team is still new to the sport but they're starting to show some development in key areas...now we just need to keep that up while working on our chemistry together. In the past 2 games they bounced back from a poor showing against Robinson last week, and in this game in particular they really started to show some of things we've been working on.
The Aces will be back on home on Monday evening, hosting Robinson at 4:30 pm.