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Wow. Now THAT was a great game.
By Paul Boyer | September 14, 2008
That was certainly one of those games I wish I would have videotaped because we need to see it again to believe it. Loudoun defeated Great Falls Madrid this afternoon in a stunner. Stunner for them I mean. The weather turned out to be better than expected. Breezy and warm with the sun low in the sky. Field conditions were grassy. Longish grassy. Loudoun came off the whistle roaring down the field to score in a tangled mess at their goal posts in the 3rd minute. When the bodies cleared, I think Gio was the one to get a foot on it, but it could have been Nate. Who scored the first goal? Whomever, Loudoun was off to a great start against shocked GRFL. They must have been very angry about that because they scored in both the 5th and 6th minutes to go ahead by one goal. It stayed that way in a tough back and forth match up until halftime. Then on the GRFL kickoff, they sent the ball deep in to Loudoun territory and kicked one into the unprotected open goal to go ahead 3-1 in the 31st minute. I though Loudoun was defeated. Come back from being down 3-1 against this team?
Hard fought chances, tough possessions, and sheer determination gave Loudoun a corner on the right side in the 36th minute. Ben was there to score off of Tim’s corner making it 3-2. Time kept sweeping past and Loudoun had a couple of shots hit the goal post. One actually hit the post then hit their keeper in the back and bounced back toward the goal only to go just wide of the post. Ahhhhhhhhhh!
Late in the game it seemed we were wearing them down just with pure willpower. Gio scored a tremendous solo goal, sweeping past defenders and blasting past the onrushing keeper to make it all tied at 3-3 in the 50th minute. After having been down 3-1, we onlookers were pretty happy to settle for a tie. But Loudoun would have none of that because with just one minute remaining in regulation time, Gio passed a glorious ball to Dawson who found the sweetspot of their goal and suddenly, miraculously, Loudoun emerged the victors in a thrilling game. Beautiful, wonderful soccer guys. I hope you lie in bed replaying that game back in your minds because it is the kind of thing that can make you happy by thinking about it for many years to come, perhaps for the rest of your life.
You probably like this unretouched photo better than the one at the top of the page. Yeah. I’ll change it again eventually.
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