North Central

The men's team bounced back from a string of bad defeats to defeat North Central College from Naperville, IL. We have had some wild matches with this team over the past few years. Several years ago, before I was the coach and during a game in Naperville, Maranatha scored four goals in the first half and then NCC scored three goals in the second half with MBBC barely holding on for the victory. I think Greg Wright scored all of the MBBC goals. I believe that we also played a match against this team in which three penalty kicks were called. Maybe if Ben or Greg Wright happen across this blog they can help out my memory. In 2004 we defeated NCC at home in a 2-1 game where NCC dominated, but couldn't put the ball in the net. NCC's Nick Aguilar unleashed shot after shot that Andrew Swift barely deflected each time. We had played a women's match that afternoon, so the game was started late. It was so dark that I wasn't sure if Swifty could even see the ball. In 2005, NCC won down in Naperville in a hard fought contest. Stephen Roby scored on a free kick from almost 40 yds and hit the post on another. NCC's second goal of the contest was one of the hardest hit balls that I have ever seen.
Coming into the 2006 match, both teams had been struggling lately. NCC scored first on a own goal, the ball was spinning a great deal and the wind also affected it's flight. I don't think the NCC player was even shooting. We scored on a nice hustle (does he score any other way?) goal by Mark Scally to even the score at half-time 1-1. I thought we would end up with another 2-1 game when Mike Knepp scored with a nice shot from the righ side of the goal. Unfortunately, NCC scored again less than a minute later. This game was not over, however as the men increased the pressure and Joel Smith was able to find the net twice in the last 20 minutes.
Overall, I was very happy just to get the win and to score a few goals. Our attack was much stronger than it had been of late and our defensive intensity was greatly improved. I am a little concerned with our attacking and defensive shape, but we have a couple of days to work on it. We resume conference play on Saturday against Lakeland College. - C