CU Vs St. Cloud 04/17/2011

Today we beat St. Cloud 1-0!! The game started off very  frantic with a lot of balls in the air with no direction. After Cu started to relax a little bit more things started working out in the offensive half. We started to quickly distribute the ball through the middle to a target forward who would turn and use the outside midfielders who were making run on the outside. Once we started doing this we had a couple chance on net with balls sent in from the outside. There was some opportunities on our offensive half but we did not finish. The majority of the first half was spent on our half of the field which didn't necessarily mean they were in control. Throughout the whole game we struggled to win balls in the air from goal kicks which kept us locked in our half. The second half both teams started to slow down and became less aggressive making the game very slow. With 15 minutes left in the game, Junior Savannah Nolen sent a through ball to Sophomore Arielle Stimson and the St. Cloud defender and goalie miscommunicated and collided leaving Arielle with an open net which she shot and scored. The last five minutes were very frantic but the defense managed to hold the back line and keep anyone from getting any chances. The back line and goalies did an exceptional job at maintaining great positioning, communication and played smart overall. The midfield also did a great job at positioning and communication. The forwards worked together very well along with pressuring the defenders out wide. We as a team need to work on winning balls in the air, movement and communication when someone has the ball, checking to, and making quicker decisions. It felt good to win against this team and showed us how well we can do as a team when we relax, look up, work hard and work for each other. Today's game showed that Concordia has a lot of potential.