Banged up, but not out

The Eagles won a physcial match at Loveland (3-1) this past Thursday.  The first half of the game was pretty even with both teams getting a goal.  Loveland's shorter field along with their 3-4-3 (seemed like a 5-2-3 at times)  dictated the styles of play.  With loveland constantly putting pressure on Walnut's back four, the Eagles elected to go more direct to Pescovitz and Lewis in the 2nd half.  While the game wasn't extremely pretty, the Eagles pressed the Tigers to playing almost the whole second half on their defensive side.   With direct style Wiedmann punted the ball all way down the field to Pescovitz to who won the 50-50 ball and beat the Tiger's defense to put Walnut up 2-1.  Andre Lewis would make a great tackle and combine with 2 give go's to Pescovitz which led to the third goal. As the game was the prettiest it was a hard fought match, which saw the Eagles prevail with their backs to the wall. 

The high point from Thursday carried a nasty hangover into Saturday as the Eagles where without 6 players including regular starters (Lewis and Wiers).   Walnut struggled against Finneytown on quite possibly the worst field in the city.   The ball would bobble in every which way, which wrecked havoc on Walnut keeping any type of possession and struggled to put any quality shots on frame (but several wide).   Walnut would go 2-0 down after a questionable pk (the foul took place outside the box).  Walnut began to step there intensity and seemed to get back into the game when Pescovitz shoulder the ball into the goal, but was called for handling.  Also, the referee failed to correctly caution a Finneytown player for his second offense. This would have led to Finneytown being down a man, but instead the referee ignored his lineman and gave it to another player.  Everything seemed to be against Walnut as nothing could go their way.  The hostile conditions led to frustration for the whole program, which proved to be just a bit too much to overcome.

The good news is that we won't have to play on a field that poorly in the tournament or again after Walnut plays Wilmington on Tuesday.  The Eagles are still in a great position to win challenge for the league title and for a good top seed in the tournament.