I love to see these two teams play, so I'm looking forward to this game. Hopefully, attendance will be better than last week, but it's hard to blame Boston fans for passing up last week's game. Why pay to see the Bruise Sisters beat up everybody when you can wait a week and see Brandi & the Brazilians?
It appears that Saturday's game will be about 20-30 degrees cooler than the 29 June game last year vs San Jose that was also on PAX. The day was brutal.... and one in which the players had every right to whine about the conditions on their feet.....
Try 40 degrees cooler than last summer. But how could anyone complain about "heat" last Saturday? Philly was just as cloudy/rainy as we were in New England. Remember, Philly plays on something other than FieldTurf (SafeTurf???). Generally, I have seen very little difference in play between FieldTurf and grass. Maybe backspins tend to "bite" more. But slide tackles such as Lilly executed in the second half last week would never have been dreamed of when playing on previous versions of synthetic turf. But, I remember a huge raspberry on Chastain's thigh from a slide back in '01. (Damn, I wish that I'd had my camera ready for that legshow. ) Chastain had to come out of that game because of damage done from a nasty tackle by Keri Sanchez (then Raygor). I wonder how she feels having the fellow Californian on her team now?
The one I remember was right at midfield in front of the 4th official. As Brandi released her pass she got clobbered. The referee waved "play on" as the pass went to Sissi who crossed perfectly to Venturini who nailed the back of the net from about 25 yards out.
Well, I'm back from Nickerson and it was a great night as it ended up.For the greater part of the game it didn't look like the Breakers were going to win this.Karina LeBlanc came up huge tonight making a series of quick reaction saves when San Jose was really pressing.Crissy McCann did really well, tonight.I think I'll have to look at a tape to see how on earth Stephanie missed that shot from 5 yards out.All in all she had a strong first half.Nice crowd in the mid 8000s.We got the 3 points and looked pretty good doing it. Weymouth Dave
Go Breakers! I'm back from the State Cups and the Rev game tonight. Glad to see that the Breakers did better than the 'boro bunch. A bit of F/F through the tape, so I am sure I missed a lot (although it is blissful not listening to Dorrance and Allman). Great for KK to get the shutout. There must be an mind link between M&M. And there is no way that ball gets past Beene for Mellgren to pot unless it momentarily phased out of existence in this universe. (That, or a really big whiff. ) Definitely a game that the Breakers would have lost in prior seasons.
Why take Stephanie out? Sure she missed that shot but O'Grady didn't do better in the second half. I don't understand why Beene went out. Their were defenders there. She should have just waited. Another cool finish from Dagny.
Man, the Breakers lucked out to get this win. Beene made a huge mistake coming out for that ball. Her defense was too far out to back her up in goal. Lilly was her usual awesome self, but I don't know why Boston kept attacking on Brandi's side of the field. She stuffed practically every attempt to attack on her side. They should've gone after Sanchez.
BOS were probably thrilled they got 3 points out of this one. They were outplayed for most of the game, and just about the whole of the 2nd half. Hucles & Kluegel are probably two of the most overrated on the pool. Did Hucles even touch the ball in the 2nd half? I thought she was subbed out until I saw her coming out at full-time. For someone trying to make the nats roster as a defensive mid, it was a poor showing. Kluegel was her usual stinky self. If there was a contest as to who could turn the ball over to the opponent or to the touch-line the most, Kluegel would win that contest outright. LeBlanc kept the team in the game. Buy her a steak dinner. Beene gift-wrapped the 3 points with her mistake. Buy her dinner, and dessert too.
The Breakers were very very lucky last night. But, they lost their share of games in the past when they outplayed the opponent, so I'll take the 3 points.
By the way congrats to the kid from Haverhill for making the 2 shots and pocketing the $1000 at halftime!! Weymouth Dave
Mellgren Goal Lets Breakers Escape With 1-0 Win Sweet finish lifts Breakers Crazy play went the Breakers' way Breakers stand tall Breakers' late goal beats the CyberRays
Digging through some links for WWC articles I came across this old article with some good Breakers stuff in the middle. The Connecticut Connection