From Coach Ed Berberich: The Soccer Aces traveled to Robinson Monday night losing 0-9, then hosted North Posey the following night, losing 0-7.
Against Robinson the Aces took 5 shots, 4 off frame, they had 2 chances created, and 1 interception. Eli Baker had 6 saves in goal. Robinson took 16 shots, 12 on frame.
In the North Posey match, the Aces took 4 shots, with 3 on frame, they had 5 chances created and 9 interceptions. Eli Baker had 10 saves in goal. North Posey took 20 shots, 17 on frame.
We're still learning how to play through our mistakes and not let down as a team when they happen, and that's going to be a process. That said, the Robinson match was disappointing on that front. We played timidly and were way too passive for most of that match. Any time we come out like that we're not giving ourselves a chance to perform well. It's something we've struggled with so far but this was probably our worst showing of it, and because of that we were never really in this game.
North Posey was better in that regard, but we're still slow in our reactions. Too often, we're waiting until the ball gets somewhere before we move to do anything which puts us a step behind the play. We did have our most interceptions against Posey so that's showing some improvement in that area, but we need to continue working on that. We're going to make mistakes, but when we make them at half speed it makes it even worse. This was a close match 25 minutes in as we were down, but only by 2 goals. Then we gave up a penalty kick and that took a toll on us. We need to keep working on being mentally strong enough to withstand these things and to keep trying to play the way we've been working on this season. It's a really tough stretch of games for us at the moment, with 8 games in 15 days we haven't had time to practice much, which we need right now. That many games is a mental and physical test that in the long run will be good for our development, but in the moment is hard to push through for such a young team. After Thursday, we'll be able to get a few practices in over the next couple weeks that will hopefully lead us into the last stretch with a chance to improve on some of things that are giving us trouble right now.
The Aces host Newton on Thursday 9/17 at 6 pm.