Season 13, Game 8: The Night Goal

We had to reschedule a game against Ardmore--the only team in our division that we haven't played this season--because we will be playing a tournament next weekend when we were originally scheduled to play them. The ECU soccer coach told Amber, our team manager, that we could turn on the soccer field lights for a midweek night game, so the game was scheduled for 7 pm on a Tuesday. When we got to the field, however, we learned that only 3/8 of the lights were actually working! It was enough, but as you can see, it was dark.

Emilio started at forward, and Ardmore jumped out to an early lead. A little more than 30 minutes into the game, I am positioned behind the side judge on the darkest corner of the field when the ball makes its way to a shadowy figure at the top of the box. Nineteen seconds into the video below, you can see how that shadowy figure delivers a hard shot which careens off the keeper's mitts and then rolls into the back net. That shadowy figure is Emilio, and his goal evens the score 1-1. That's Emilio's sixth goal of the season.

Not long after that, Coach Tyler moves Emilio to midfield and Sam to forward. Emilio launches a successful through ball, which Sam runs down and then delivers neatly into the net to give us a 2-1 halftime lead.

At the start of the second half, I am in the brightest corner of the field when Mary Ann serves up a free kick that finds Emilio's foot in the box. Coach Tyler was unhappy with Sam's positioning, but Emilio draws the defense to him and then sneaks the ball through a defender's legs to Konner, our left forward, who is calling for the ball. Her kick puts us up 3-1.

Two minutes later, things got weird. The referee stopped play to scold the Ardmore coach for shouting criticisms at him. After that conversation seemed to have ended and the ref was walking back on to the field, the Ardmore coach muttered loudly enough for me to hear him at the other end of the field, "Call it both ways." The ref pivoted back towards him, and the Ardmore coach revised his comment to "Call it both ways please, sir."

Within minutes, the ref gave a red card to one of the Ardmore players for pushing Corbin down. The Ardmore coach started complaining loudly, and the ref called off the game.