2001 Girl Knights 2013

Our Knights were surprised by a fast and aggressive Innisfil midfield. Three costly mistakes and we were down by 3 at the half. Our team gained composure and we remembered our game. We played wide and started to spread out more on the attack. Good support from the full-backs and good passes from our midfield almost gets us a tie. 2-1 in the second half on our favour. A good last half to have after a successful season.

We had an excellent start to the game. Solid passing and support helped us create many chances in the first half. Emily’s injury worried our players and they lost focus. Our defense and Sara kept Newmarket’s attack in check and helped our attack regain composure. Outstanding free-kick by Isabelle to end the half with well deserved advantage. Very rough play by some Newmarket players specially in the second half did not intimidate our players – we did not let them push us around. We showed a lot of determination specially in the attack in the second half.

We continue to concentrate on solid defending. Excellent execution in the first half – best defending half so far for this team. Bracebridge had a very strong fullback and keeper that gave a challenge to our forwards, so even though we dominated, we ended up the half only up by one. I was thrilled with our play. Bracebridge adjusted well to our formation and came strong with 3:4:3 in the 2nd half. It surprised our fullbacks and a mistake tied the game right after the start of the half. We then adjusted well to their formation with strong counter-attacks after that. Our midfield played very well and passed long to our forwards who delivered. We forgot how to set up a wall, other than that a great showcase of our improving game play, skills and determination.

We continue to concentrate on solid defending. Excellent execution in the first half – best defending half so far for this team. Bracebridge had a very strong fullback and keeper that gave a challenge to our forwards so even though we dominated, the half ended up the half only up by one. I was thrilled with our play. Bracebridge adjusted well to our formation and came strong with 3:4:3 in the 2nd half. It surprised our fullbacks and a mistake tied the game. We then adjusted well to their formation with strong counter-attacks. Our midfield played well and passed long to our forwards who delivered. We forgot how to set up a wall, other than that a great showcase of our improving play and determination.

Our goals of the game were Defending and Support. We have been practicing defending the past few weeks. Our attacking strategy was to keep the ball wide as much as possible but counter-attack long. Our players executed well in the first half: our forwards were well positioned and aggressive and our midfield delivered good balls. Defensively we contained Vaughan’s strong midfielders well with good defensive support for the most part other than a few mistakes and questionable calls by the referee.

With only 2 subs our players started to get tired in the second half and we were not winning 50/50 balls. This really hurt us during Vaughan’s corner kicks. The last 1/3 of the half we got our second wind, passed the ball really well and got the game back under our control.