Round One Playoff Win

Your Cate Rams traveled to San Bernardino earlier today to play in the 1st round of the CIF SS D6 Playoffs against the Colton Yellow Jackets. It was a long drive but we were able to avoid traffic and arrived with plenty of time to unwind and have a proper stretch and warm up prior to the match. See below for the starting 11.

The hosts came out aggressively trying to impose their will on us in front of their home fans. It took a few minutes for both teams to feel each other out. Around the 15th minutes both teams began to create scoring chances and in the 18th minute Colton drew first blood when they converted a second chance play to take a 1-0 lead. Their lead didn’t last very long, two minutes later, Teke stole a ball in the midfield and found George on the left side, George outran 3 Colton and slotted the ball in the right hand bottom corner to tie the score. The mact was pretty balanced over the next 20 minutes. In the 38th minute, Miles received a long ball from the left side on the right flank, beat his defender and launched a cross and found Nolan in the middle of the box, Nolan blasted a shot into the back of the net to give us our first lead of the night. Right before the whistle to end the first half, George returned the favor, finding Teke open inside the 6 yard box and calmly chipping the ball over the Colton keeper to extend our lead and give us 3-1 advantage at the half.

The second half started and we came out looking for an early goal to put the yellow jackets away for good. The George/Teke duo struck again in the 46th minute, George took a wicked shot that the Colton keeper was unable to hold on to and Teke was there to push the ball in the back of the net and extend our lead to 4-1. In the 63rd minute, Colton was awarded a PK from an apparent handball and converted their second goal to cut our lead to 4-2.

We pressed forward in an effort to regain our 3 goal cushion and in the 67th minute, Miles, playing his best game of the season, launched a shot from around 20 yards of on the right flank that flew over the Colton keeper and landed in the back of the net to put the game away and give us a solid 5-2 road victory.

We have been patiently waiting for our first match of the playoffs and we were definitely prepared. We seem to have gotten into a bad habit of conceding the first goal and we really need to change that fast. However, I’m proud of the way we bounced back and responded. It’s nice to get that first win and we are aware that we need to continue to improve because our opponents will improve as we progress through each round of the playoffs.

We will be traveling to Calabasas on Friday to face Viewpoint @ 3 pm in round 2. We want to give a huge THANK YOU to a handful of traveling supporters that took the long drive.