St. Thomas @ Plymouth Regional
Friday October 19, 2012

The day started with rain, like most this past week.  The Plymouth AD called St. Thomas at 10am and rescheduled the game for 4pm on Saturday.  Coach was on top of things and sent out an email and twitter notice to everyone.  At noon The call came from Plymouth - The game is back on, it stopped raining and the field is OK to play on.  Coach has now learned to wait on sending notices.

The Saints boarded the bus and prepared for their longest road trip of the season.  Traveling from Dover Point Road to Plymouth Regional in the old white bus take just over two hours.
It had stopped raining at least.  The sun threatened to break out a number of times on route.  The only use of the bus wipers came from road spray.  It was looking like the weather would cooperate.

We pulled into Plymouth at 3:10 and dropped the JV team off behind the middle school and drove to the High School.  Just as the bus pulled to a stop the rain started.  Players used the bus as a locker room to get ready for the game.

Plymouth was celebrating senior day as it was their last home game of the regular season.  They were nice enough to include recognition of the St. Thomas seniors also.  Seniors were announced prior to the game.

For St. Thomas:

Ben Mardin, Evan Surprenant, Noah Schwaegerle, Sebastian Olsen, Brian Ellis, TJ Tetreault, Jon Nartiff, Simon Smith, John Sweeney and Tony Kassas.

For Plymouth Regional:

Chuck Buhrman, Tyler Gagne, Rob Mills, Colin McDonough, Colin "Sang" O'Brien, Karac Shamberger, Brandon Toomey, Joe Mohan, Ian Wilcox, Woody Hedberg, Derik Guild, Jake Harrington,

The Saints took the field with Ben Mardin in goal.  The Defense was Noah Schwaegerle, Sebastian Olsen, Brian Ellis and Guy Kassas.  The Midfield was Evan Surprenant, Bryan King, TJ Tetreault, Tommy Griffiths and Aaron Dubois.  Andrew Marino as Striker.

The Saints were without Eric Eames  this game as he was recovering from a concussion.  Jon Nartiff and Tony Kassas were also unavailable, so freshman Liam Sweeney was brought up from the JV team.

The Bobcats of Plymouth Took the kick-off and were able to work down in the St. Thomas defense, but they were forced to the side and the ball was sent over the goal line for a goal kick.  The Saints worked the ball up into the Plymouth defense but the wet grass slowed the passing down and many passes came up short of their mark.  Of course the constant rain fall didn't help much either.

Simon Smith, John Sweeney went in at outside midfield, Xavier Quinn went in at Striker, Scott Lamoureux went in at defense to add their help to the Saints game plan.

13:06 saw a ball come back out of the Bobcats box about 30 yards. Kassas had been pushed up into the attack and he let a shot rip that looked like it was on frame.  It went over the outstretched hand of the Plymouth keeper who was out off his line and it was sinking fast, but it pinged off the cross bar sending water spraying every where from the force of the shot.

Beau Patteson went in as striker.  Liam Sweeney, Jared Ham and Noah Guilfuchi went in for the Saints offense at midfield.

With less than a minute left in the half Plymouth committed a foul giving the Saints a direct kick from the far touchline even with the 18 yard line of the Bobcat box.  Tommy Griffiths lined up to take the kick,  The Referee called out "30 Seconds", The team bench all yelled encouragement to hurray.  Griffiths kick was low and hard into the box, King redirected it into the goal past a diving Plymouth keeper to finally get the Saints on the board.

St. Thomas put only 3 shots on net in the first half and the Bobcats hadn't managed any.

Halftime found the Saints up 1-0, familiar territory.  St. Thomas asked the referees and Plymouth agreed to a 5 min halftime so the wet players wouldn't tighten up and the water wouldn't rise too high on the field.

Asst. Coach Jason Suleski with the only umbrella.

At this point nothing was dry on the sidelines.

Players uniforms were like second skins.

St. Thomas went out in the second half with a goal lead but knowing anything could happen in this kind of weather.

The Saints took the kick off down the field and sent the ball to the near side to Marino who just missed getting to the ball as it was scooped up by the Plymouth keeper.

The game picked up pace as the downpour increased.  Every time you thought it couldn't rain harder it did.  There were a few references to Caddyshack and Bill Murray saying "I'd Keep Playing, I don't think the heavy stuff is going to come down for a while"  (In case you don't get the infrence)

At 65:20 the Saints were able to amount a strong attack but the Bobcat defense broke it up and as they started to pass it outside Bryan King stepped up and stole the pass.  King went in a few yards and unleashed a rocket shot that beat the Plymouth keeper for his second goal of the day. 

Every player was soaking wet and uniforms and cleats were heavy.  Everyone was playing well and moving the ball as best they could fighting the Bobcats and Mother Nature.

The game saw a lot of through balls scooped up by keepers as players couldn't run fast enough to get onto them.

The Sweeney brothers played in their first varsity game together.

The game ended with the Saints 2 goal lead holding and the water level rising above the grass blades.

Ben Mardin had 3 saves to earn his third shut-out of the season.

St. Thomas will wait for Monday to see the play-off bracket.  The saints end the season in 12th place and will travel to face the 5th place team.  There is a tie between Lebanon, Trinity and Goffstown so we need to see how it will fall.  The game will be on Thursday October 25 for a 3:00pm start.

Here are some video highlights from the first half before the camera got too wet.

 (see it here if it doesn't load in your browser)

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