1st XI Soccer team makes grand final

SENIOR SOCCER REPORT -“ SEMI-FINAL-

St Patrick’s Seniors 2 defeated Ballarat Grammar 0

GOALS: Ben Hutchins, Josh de Voogel

BEST: Trent Moodley, Josh de Voogel, Ben Parish, Dennis Wanjiku, Jake Selby, Henry Wines

This game could have been a complete white wash for St Patrick’s but fizzled out to be a struggle due to two aspects of the game. One: Grammar have a building defensive unit that is impressive and two: the St Patrick’s boys did not always take shots at goal. Sometimes when we faced the goal we passed off to someone else and expected them to put the ball into the back of the net.-

After a 17-1 white wash over a Damascus team that has some impressive players, we went sideways and we played too smart -“ we squandered too many chances in the build up to get shots on goal.-

The positives from this match were the first goal via an impressive build up via Jake Selby, Miles Baker and a neat tap in from Ben Hutchins. – It looked by how far at this stage but we couldn’t make an imprint against their tight defensive structure. However, we hit all the framework possible as the shots wouldn’t go in.

The clincher for the match was off a powerful drive off the right wing from Josh de Voogel. The ball flew into the box and got a slight deviation from a Grammar defender before going into the goals. It was an important score after many strong attacks from the forward line which rebounded off posts or were hit at the keeper.

The second half we attacked regularly but couldn’t break through. Jack Gaffney beat the defense but shot wide and Trent Moodley was playing incredibly well on the right wing and gave off tempting balls to our attackers. He scraped some skin off late in the game but he had given his all in searching runs into attack.

Ben Parish and Denis Wanjiku were strong in defense all match and both made telling saves against threatening efforts. Keeper Henry Wines did his usual cool job and could be relied upon to come forward when help was needed.

Next Wednesday we play College in the Grand Final and we wish all the best to the team who have been the stand out team this season and who should take back the premiership which went across the road last year. –

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