Deportivo Azteca Suffers
Drubbing at the Feet of the Firecrackers 6/13
David Ahlgren: email:
dave.ahlgren@gmail.com
14 July 2005
Yes, the Firecrackers won handily yesterday, but that’s not the big
news. The Firecrackers now have a fan club! The unofficial name of
this growing group of Firecracker faithfuls has come to be known as
the “Saltines”. This group, lead by yesterday’s Fan of the Match,
Heather Nelson, helped keep the team in the game when things started
to look bad.
Things didn’t always look bad for the
Firecrackers. After an early goal by scoring-machine Sean
Stonehouse, assisted by pass-master Donny Dequine, the Firecracker’s
ball of destruction began to get rolling. A second goal was scored
a few minutes later when forward Dave Ahlgren subbed in and took a
corner kick. Since his right foot was too swollen to kick the ball,
he took the lessons he’d learned from expert corner-taker John
Basanese, (who was in goal at the time) and put the ball in play.
Paul Touchet played another brilliant dummy and allowed the ball to
bend around the defense and dive down untouched, just over his head
and behind the front post, for the second goal of the game.
Not too much later, the strong defense
was betrayed by the lone referee. The Aztecas were offsides by a
long shot, but play was allowed to continue and they were able to
pass the ball to each other, past the valiant efforts of keeper John
Basanese. The half ended with the ‘Crackers up 2-1.
The second half also began on a strong
note, when a brilliant ball was played into Ahlgren. He received
the ball facing away from the goal, and as stopper Ronnie Jenkins
ran toward the goal, Ahlgren passed the ball backward down the field
with his heel, adding a little bounce to its path. Ronnie took aim
and half-volleyed home the third goal from a whopping 25 yards out.
Above: David Ahlgren plays the ball
forward.
3-1 is a pretty good result, but the
game turned interesting, very quickly. The Aztecas got a break when
one of their players was taken down inside the Firecracker penalty
box. The slide tackle by Brian Sturges appeared to be clean, but
the lone ranger referee arrested the play and awarded a
penalty-kick. Despite ‘Cracker attempts to mentally distract the
kicker, and a good read by Basanese, the ball found the net, just
off of JB’s fingertips. All of a sudden, it was 3-2.
Above: Firecrackers 'keeper John
Basanese dives to save a PK to no avail. Photo by Joshua Basanese
Not five minutes later, the Aztecas had
another hand from the mystical “onsides” fairy. They must have made
three forward passes behind the Firecracker defense before they took
a shot on an open goal. The ‘Crackers had planned on fortifying the
back and not playing the offside trap, but old habits die hard—even
if they are good habits. Under “normal” circumstances, there would
be other ref’s there to call players offside, but the ‘Crackers had
none such help. John could take away the front post shot, but he
couldn’t defend an offside forward too. They scored and the game
was tied. 3-3!
Above: Brian Sturgess anchored the
defense
It was at this point in the game that
Heather earned her Fan of the Match crown. Heather took things into
her own hands and started cheering louder for the Firecrackers.
Just to show how much these fans love their Firecrackers, Heather
chose to celebrate her birthday at her big brother’s game!
She never gave up on the Crackers, and it showed. After the match,
Heather said, “I cheered my heart out, and I was running up and down
the field! I also helped the referee [when he missed some calls].”
The Firecrackers heard the battle cry,
and the deluge of goals came to wash away the Aztecas.
Sean Stonehouse started the route, when
he got his second and third goals of the game. Ronnie Jenkins
floated a nice corner kick into the mix and Stonehouse put it away
easily. Minutes later, defender Will Race played a very nice ball
to Sean again, who took the ball off his chest, turned and hit a
scorcher to the left corner of the net. All of a sudden it was 5-3.
Above: Man of the match Sean
Stonehouse had three goals.
Before the final nail was put in the
coffin, Devin had to put on a final show for his fan club. One of
the Aztecas was dribbling the ball down the field, and made the
mistake of allowing the ball to get a little ahead of him. Devin
took the opportunity to go in hard and take the ball away. Let’s
say that the Azteca player made the collision look much worse than
it was, and for that, Devin was written in the books for a yellow
card infraction.
Donny Dequine rounded out the scoring
for the Firecrackers with a late goal. He took a pass near the top
corner of the box from Ronnie, and threaded it nicely past a diving
keeper. That was it for the Aztecas. They had nothing more left in
them.
As I was gathering reactions from the
fans after the game, there was a lively spirit in the air. People
were excited, and Jen Kwapinski, in all her exuberance said, “It was
a ROCKIN’ fast-movin’…. Dynamite game!” Her sister, Kimberly Draman
was beyond words. There wasn’t anything she could say to describe
the magnificence of the game. Tina Basanese had this to say:
“Favorite parts about the game? Hmmn… Seeing so much ‘Basaneseness’
at them. And seeing you guys win because you sucked last year.”
Above: Devin Nelson charges up field
A trait that we are actively fixing
this year. We have won the past 4 straight games—a strong streak
heading into the last regular season game. We play well alone, but
with our fans we have that much more spark in our stride.
So to our fans, here’s to you!
The Firecrackers team would also like
to send out our condolences to the Favella family. Our thoughts and
prayers are with you!
Special
Thanks to John Basanese Sr. for his brilliant photos, found
here.
More photos taken by
special photographer Joshua Basanese (brother of John and Jeremy)
are posted here!
