A Night To Remember

The stage was set for a dominant performance for Luther. Under the lights, on senior night, pumpkins carved with the names of our four seniors, finishing at 5-3 in the conference and a chance to end Coe's season, it seemed that everything was going right for the Norse. But the game is a fickle friend, and it does not always do what one thinks it would, and Luther had another one of its patented slow starts. If it wasn't for Steve O'Meara, IIAC defensive player of the week, Luther could have been in trouble. Steve had a huge game for the Norse and was able to add to his conference lead in shutouts in the Norse victory.
The second half was not much better and Luther continued to struggle with creating chances and finding a flow to the game. When Alex Case picked up two yellow cards back to back in the 59th minute, it looked as if things could not get worse for the Norse. But for reasons unknown to nearly everyone involved, it was at that point that Luther started to play up to their potential. They started to create chances and defend with some fervor, and the last third of the game was completely different. It seems that sometimes we have to go a man down in order to start playing better, as was the case with our 3-goal performance against Bethel earlier this year. Perhaps we have some sort of self-deprecation soccer syndrome, where we hurt ourselves in order to play better. We need a psychologist to analyze our team to figure things out.
The game was scoreless at the end of regulation and we went into overtime a man down but with spirits high. Our spirits soared even higher when first-year Melchor Quezada received the ball wide from senior captain Jimmy Laroque. Melchor picked up his head to find a streaking senior captain Adam Pyzdrowski. With the touch of an angel he lofted the ball just in behind the reeling Coe defenders onto Pyz's run. The goalie came out to challenge but Pyz touched the ball over the head of the onrushing keeper and found the back of the net six minutes into overtime. As the team rushed past the distraught Coe defenders and had a 32-man dog-pile in front of the home supporters, there was a collective sigh of relief from the sideline.
What a great way to end an interesting day. A beautiful goal from senior Adam Pyzdrowski on senior night in front of his family. It was just what we needed heading into the biggest game of the year for the first round of the IIAC post-season tournament at home against Simpson on Tuesday.