I apologize for the delay in the updates. I have underestimated how busy things become during the season. Since I last posted the Wings have enjoyed their first win. It took a sloppy performance at home against Baltimore for the team to get back to scoring goals. Baltimore came in to Hartman Arena and controlled the game very well. They didn’t pile it on as they didn’t need to. They ran out 12-6 winners on a seemingly desolate Wings attack. Jamar Beasley put away two more on the night and continued his fine form in the early stages of the season. He has now scored in five of the team’s first six games and has three multi-goal games as well. He currently leads the team with 9 total goals and 23 points.
The ensuing weekend brought the struggling Norfolk SharX to Hartman Arena. The SharX were a team that had been destroyed in it’s two opening games as a franchise. They had allowed 20 plus points in their first to games and had only scored 14 of their own. On paper it looked to be a very winnable game for the Wings. Many of the players called it a must win game as they were now 0-4. The game ultimately ended in a win for the Wings as they won in front of their home crowd for the first time this year. They held off a late SharX surge to win 16-11. It wasn’t the prettiest of wins as many times it seemed as if they should have broken the game open and killed it off. But it is a job done, first win of the new Wings era. The only negative about the final buzzer sounding was that it meant the team, including me, had to immediately get on a bus and drive 13 hours through the night to go back to Milwaukee for a rematch against the Milwaukee Wave. The Wings fell to the defending MISL champs only three games ago 13-15.
Maybe it was the long trip up to Milwaukee, and the two games in three days, or that Milwaukee hadn’t played a game in over a week and were very well rested. Whatever we want to blame the first half performance on we can, but the fact is a few defensive slip-ups and a very big 4 minutes at the beginning of the second quarter resulted in a lead big enough for the Wave to hold us off in the fourth. Gradually the Wave built a sturdy lead, including 6 points from 3 goals in under 4 and half minutes to start the 2nd quarter. By the beginning of the 4th quarter it was 13-0 and the thought of the Wave shutting the Wings out loomed large. We would have been the first team to be shutout all year. Two minutes into the fourth Bryan Perez quelled our worries as he tapped in a great nutmegged pass from Victor Quiroz to make the score 13-2. So a bit of relief as the 0 was wiped off the board, and also the slightest bit of hope that a rally was on its way. That bit of hope provided from Perez was enough to urge the boys on and really start believing they could get something from this game. They scored all five goals of the quarter and even killed a 5 0n 3 disadvantage half way trough the period. They did come up three points short and they were beaten 10-13. The comeback really was brilliant though, I told the guys after the game it was the most exciting 15 minutes of Wings soccer I had called all season. They showed us that they are team that can come from behind and compete with a top team once again. Now the final element of that equation is for them to find the final element that pushes them over the hump. Competing is good and everything, but winning that competition is what ends the day with a feeling of satisfaction. I know this for sure, the feeling after the game was not satisfaction. The ‘almost’ comeback was not satisfying in the locker room. It probably did however provide the post-game talk with a bit less negative feel.
As they move forward they see an expansion weekend. Tomorrow the Syracuse Silver Knights then Saturday the Norfolk SharX enter the 1-2 home record fortress of Hartman Arena. I won’t give a preview because not having seen much of Syracuse I don’t want to give my two cents when it is probably only worth half a penny right now. All I will say is that Slavisa Ubiparipovic is the league’s leading scorer. He is young and had a trial with the New York Red Bulls. He sounds like the real deal, and with the Wings defense still in some injury trouble he might have a big night, so I think containing the team’s other threats will be key. I won’t say anything about Norfolk because I believe the score line should and will be about 19-8 Wings. Adios
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