By Roman Kuznicki-
STERLING HEIGHTS, MI – Sunday afternoon at Wanda Park White Eagle SC played an MPSL game against Oakland Yard FC. The game started promptly at 4pm as scheduled. The weather conditions were tough as it was a very hot and humid day in Sterling Heights. The heat and humidity was felt by the spectators and especially by the players who were about to compete for crucial 3 points in the MPSL standings. The weather conditions had some negative impact on the game before it even started, as some players decided not to show up to the game. As a result, the Oakland Yard FC club started the game with only 10 players and never had more than 11, which meant they were not able to make any substitutions. The Eagles, with their tough character and will to win showed up in numbers despite the weather conditions.
The crowd on had was bigger than usual as there was a Polish picnic at the park.
The Eagle Team was at the field almost 45 minutes before the first whistle, warming up for the upcoming game. Many of the players from the opposite team were showing up very late which resulted in OYFC not having a full 11 at the start of the game. As a result, Eagles were dominating possession and creating dangerous scoring changes, but once again had a hard time finding the back of the net. Eagle players were wasting chance after chance and slowly loosing hope for a goal in the first half. The defensive formation of OYFC played an excellent game which contributed to the Eagles not being able to score. They held their own until about the 40th minute, when Eagles’ forward Mike Robell opened the scoring after a beautiful pass from Spencer Steinwascher.
The second half looked totally different from the first whistle. Eagles started to dominate the field of play even more and started to score goal after goal. Second half goals for the Eagles were scored by Aidan Kuhls, Bryce DeLamielleure, Dariusz Nowak and Ryan Ruloff. At that point it became crystal clear that the 3 points can go to only one team.
Great effort by the entire team to show how well organized, strong and balanced of one team they are. The Eagles score 5 goals and every goal was score by a different player that means a lot and it only proves that the managing of the team by both of the coaches only gets better and better. We are stronger as a team and that’s what’s the most important.
To ensure everyone how difficult it was to play in this kind of weather there wasan interesting and very unusual event that occurred after 30 min of play of each half. After a half an hour of play the main referee blow the whistle for a water brake. Last time I saw something like that was during the World Cup in Brazil.
Come out and show your support during Eagles’ next game which is scheduled for Wednesday, July 22 versus a very strong Carpathia team which just won the State Cup last Sunday by defeating a good San Marino team by a score of 3:0.
