Rovers Thirds (1) - NY Enforcers (1), 5/31/09

Rovers Thirds finished their season with a tie, which left them fourth in the final standings, a mere five points away from the third and last promotion spot. Sunday's game was the perfect example of how the season went for the team. Rovers completely dominated the NY Enforcers, in a game that should have ended 4-5 goals in their favor, yet missed many chances and got scored on 10 minutes before the end of the game in the only shot on goal the opposition had all game.
Rovers took control of the game from the first minute, moving the ball around well and creating a few chances. By the twentieth minute, two consecutive nice plays had left Rowley and Dick one-on-one with the keeper, but neither was able to beat the keeper. Midway through the half, another great play ended up on a corner kick on the right side. Garro gave the kick an excellent spin and the ball ended curling in past the keeper for the 1-0. A beauty!
The second half was much of the same, with the added element that the ref started calling everything in favor of the opposition, just as it’s usually the case in this division when any team faces one of the NYPD teams. So far went the ref that, after one of their forwards kicked the ball wide, he gave them a corner kick. It was from this corner that Enforcers got their only shot on goal from a short clearance by Krapp, which ended up in the back of the net. Rovers continued creating chances and not giving up, but failed to score on a few clear ones. Moore had a header just wide, Dick had another shot barely wide and Arceneaux had the last one of the game, in a play where he took on the entire back line but shot just wide when the keeper came out.
The future is promising. Should the squad remain the same, the Thirds will surely be fighting to move up to Metro 1 next season.

Squad (from left to right):
Top: Jason Moore, Okey Obudulu, James Krapp, Darrell Crane, David Schlatter, Gavin Dick and Brandon Rowley.
Bottom: Jeremy Wine, Jeremy Brown, Gustavo Garro, Juan González Casares, Ryan Arceneaux and Bruce Sholl.
Missing from the picture: Mackers, David Bernfeld, Derek Kilfedder, Michael Dirolf, Nicholas Maciunas, Thomas Obaseki, Donald Robertson and Zachary Rubin