Week 5 – Kelly Green v. White
Kelly Green really tried to clean-up its act leading up to this game. We had hoped that a GroupMe poll and a very encouraging “please try to be at the fields by 1:45” message may turn this squad around, but in true Kelly Green fashion, we had four people at the fields when game time rolled around. White graciously waited a few minutes and listened to Billy tell what I perceived to be recountments of his glory days while we waited for some stragglers to roll in. After some back and forth with Jeff over whether we needed floater assistance, we were able to secure a much-needed recruit in the great Jared Futral. With stragglers and Jared accounted for, we prepared to play with nine against a much larger White Team.
Kelly Green started on defense and for a team that hates playing defense, we played some damn good defense and got a break. However, this was followed by many points of miscommunication, questionable throws and many unforced turns. Maybe we got overconfident. Maybe we just really wanted to play defense. I’m not really sure what we were doing, but we ended up down by three early in the first half. At this point, we knew that we had to clean up our act and start making some calls. A few set plays (primarily called by our fearless leader Brandon) and some tight defense helped us to make up some ground and end the half only down by two.
The second half of this game is where Kelly Green really dug in and showed what kind of team we could be. Constant, reliable cuts from Ben Chapin and Nathaniel Wilson helped us to get the disc moving down the field & both Zak and Lyle were prepared to take the deep shots when available. With the wind picking up, we decided to set-up a bracket on the stack. Brandon, Matt and Jared’s incredible defense helped us to generate some much-needed turns. However, after a few long points, some of our guys were in desperate need of a break, pushing us to send a few 5-2 defensive lines against their 6-1 offense. But this actually seemed to work in our favor with Bonnie and I both getting a few Ds along the way. Kelly Green was able to capitalize and pull ahead with a score of 12-10.
However, White was not going down without a fight and they absolutely grinded through the end of this game. In every huddle, Brandon reminded us that this team has a lot of hustlers and we had to be prepared to put in the work to beat them. Kelly Green fought until the end, but White wanted the win more and the game ended with a score of 13-15.
The MVP for Kelly Green was an easy choice this week. Nathaniel had 5 assists, 1 goal, 2 incredible Ds and was stuck playing defense on the one and only Billy O’Bryan all game. I’m not sure that anyone else could have pulled this off.
White also had two really stand-out players this week. Rainer and Katie absolutely crushed it. Both of these players worked their asses off to get open in the deep space and give Billy somewhere to throw hammers to. They both left the field covered head to toe in dust after attempting a seemingly endless number of layouts. Props to them for really grinding out there!
Overall, this was a really spirited game and gave me hope for a Kelly Green comeback story in the bracket.