Last night, top placed BXVI played third from bottom Laddles and the game went pretty much as expected.
Laddles aren’t a bad team. When they are warming up they look good, they look dangerous. Some of their guys have very powerful kicks. The girls move like soccer players. But when the game starts, you realize that none of them can dribble other than in a straight line (which is useless against the top class defence of Meliss, Cat, Marguerite and Justin), they can’t pass to a player very well and they are almost totally incapable of shooting on target.
Monty played the whole game in goals (he has a hockey game tonight, so didn’t want any injury hampering him) and kept a clean sheet. He made a number of fine saves, but on the few occasions the Laddles were 1 on 1 with him, they shot straight at him from point blank range (or missed completely).
Dave scored first within 3 minutes of the start, Mike following up around the 6 minute mark from a wonderful square pass by Justin. Mike then came off and Dave scored an identical goal from an identical Justin Carrick pass moments later. After that, it just became a goal feast, with Mike netting a hattrick (3), Dave getting 7, and Justin, Meliss and Marguerite 1 each.
BXVI’s passing was a feature of the game, with most of the goals coming from sweetly timed passes. Marguerite’s goal came from Dave’s corner pass to Justin, who passed to Marguerite to slot home. Melissa’s goal was from Mike’s corner right into her path for her to expertly knock in at the near post after a wonderfully timed run.
In the last few minutes, Laddles woke up and decided they wanted to get a goal with the goal keeper coming out and everyone pressing for a goal. BXVI’s defence held strong, with Monty able to take advantage of the opposing keeper’s absence on two occasions. The first time, he threw the ball at the goals and one of the Laddles players deliberately handled the ball just outside the penalty area. Dave took the free kick, which became a penalty because the Laddles didn’t bother to make a wall. He scored easily. The other came from Mike breaking, Monty throwing to Mike’s feet with the Laddles keeper racing back. It was all in vain as Mike easily converted.
The final score was 13-0, with BXVI now sitting 3 points clear on top of the ladder with a bye next week after scoring 133 goals in 11 games and conceding 22 goals. To put that into perspective, before last night, Deceptacons held the next best record with 71 goals scored and 21 goals conceded in 9 games.