St. Thomas Aquinas Boys Soccer @ Conval 9-13-12

St. Thomas vs Conval
September 13, 2012

The Saints hosted the Conval Cougars in what was proving to be a busy week on the home turf. This would be the fourth home game in a row this week. All the games were putting a cramp on the amount of practice time available.

Conval arrived a bit late but then the referees said it was a 4:30 start time - it was news to me.
The game started at 4:15 and St. Thomas took the kick off.

The Saints took the field with Ben Mardin in Goal. The Defense was Noah Schwaegerle, Sebastian Olsen, Brian Ellis and Aaron Dubois. The Midfield was Evan Surprenant, Bryan King, Eric Eames and Tommy Griffiths. Jon Nartiff and Andrew Marino were up top as Strikers.

At 4:32 St. Thomas was called for a foul. The Cougars set up to take the kick from about 25 yards out. The Saints set up a wall and marked up the Conval attackers. The Referee nearest the goal held up his arm signaling an indirect kick. The Cougar player shot over the wall and directly at Mardin. He stepped to the side to make sure he didn't touch the ball as it went into the net. The trailing referee indicated a goal but not the close referee. The Conval players cheered then stopped. Both referees meet for about 30 seconds and then declared it a goal. How they decided this was beyond my knowledge of the rules.

Xavier Quinn went in at center mid and Simon Smith went in at outside mid. While Guy Kassas went in at Defense.

Down by a goal but not out the Saints gathered together and took another kick off. Play was mostly fought in the midfield. St. Thomas made a few good sideline runs and put the ball into the box but the Cougar defense would clear it out. Conval brought the ball down and was awarded a corner kick. The Saints defense cleared out the resulting kick and it was turned into a quick counter attack. Nartiff got the ball at midfield and broke through the Cougar defense. As he ran to the goal he was double teamed with a player on each shoulder. As Nartiff crossed the 18 yard line under extreme pressure he was able to put the ball over to the far post where teammate Andrew Marino buried the ball into the back of the net for his first varsity goal.

Scott Lamoureux, John Sweeney, Tony Kassas and Jared Ham went in to spell the defense and add fresh legs to the back line. Both teams fought hard for control of play. Each defense was holding strong after the initial breakdowns.

Halftime came with the score 1-1 The Cougars had outshot the St. Thomas 4-2.

In the second half Conval took the kick off and it was quickly lost to the Saints pressure.

At 36:30 Mardin made a great save and the rebound shot out into the crowd in front of the net. the ball was passed back to the 18 and a Cougar took a rocket of a shot towards the far post. It looked like it was going into the unprotected net when out of nowhere Brian Ellis stepped in front of the ball making a goal line save.

This sent the game into Overtime. St. Thomas was looking at two 10 minute periods of Golden Goal soccer.
Each team was able to put two shots on goal during the first ten minute period. After a 2 minute drink period the teams switched sides and went at it for another 10 minutes.

After two Overtime Periods of hard fought soccer the score remained tied at 1 each.
Ben Mardin had 7 saves in the net for the Saints.

It was a close fought game between two evenly matched teams.

St. Thomas will host Oyster River in a rematch on Tuesday at 4pm.
The Bobcats come to St. Thomas at 4-1 with their only loss coming in the season opener against the Saints.

Photos from John Surprenant

St. Thomas vs Conval 2012