Well, we beat the Zips, but it was anything but easy. Both teams had very good opportunities, but in the end it was one of our defenders, Jansen Miller, who headed in a nice cross from Oduro in OT. Our first goal was a nice combo - Oduro to McDonald to Weiss, who chipped the GK.
Out with a whimper. I don't have any good things to say about the last three games. It really felt like we ran out of ideas once we got into the tournaments.
Well put. For some reason, we reverted to trying to jam the ball into the area from the corners. It didn't work any better than it did before. I don't think we took a single shot from the top of the box. In fact, we had only 3 shots altogether and a defender had the best chance of scoring on one of them. Defensively, the goal resulted from an unfortunate clearance that bounced right to one of Denver's forwards. Otherwise, their offense wasn't a whole lot better than ours. Regardless, they did just enough to win. We didn't. Good luck to the remaining teams.
Commentators said the IU flew in to Denver Friday and gave the impression that most teams come in earlier to acclimate to the altitude. I understand that Thanksgiving makes that not ideal - if it was even an option at all money-wise - but I have to wonder whether an extra training session would have helped them recalibrate their gyros.