Fire tie Bayport in an undermanned scorcher

The Fire played Bayport at Soccer Park undermanned, banged up and with high heat to a 0-0 draw.

We had 10 healthy players, though 2 of them wear knee braces and are not 100%. One girl who was hoping to play with bubble wrap on her cast and hadn't played in 4 weeks, and one more girl with a sprained ankle from the tournament who was going to give it a go. We had no expectations of grandeur but wanted to compete.

We did. We took the play to Bayport and controlled the ball well keeping it mostly in their end. The sun and humidity was affecting both teams. Early on we had a great shot ripped from the 35 which hit the crossbar and bounced down right in front of the goal line. We tried to follow it up but missed. We had girls raising their hand for a sub at the same time but we only had 1 sub. Then one of our forwards got taken down and was injured. We had no subs and had to drop tp 10 girls on the field for 3 different stints. We still managed to press the play with 10 and gain more chances than them.

After a well deserved break at halftime, we took the play back to them and the injured forward sucked it up and ran back out there. The heart on this team is amazing to watch. They gave it their all. They had only a couple shots that went over the goal and we were all over them. Another rip from an outside mid gave a rebound in front and we hit the left post with the follow up. Bad luck. Then with a minute left we had one more run. Bringing it down the left our forward took a shot but the Bayport keeper dove to her left and saved it with 2 hands outstretched.

The girls deserved the win but managed a tie. Tremendous effort and GREAT JOB GIRLS!!

-Coach Ernesto

6/05/10