Day number two of the 2008 JAGS Invitational Tournament saw an 8:00am kickoff time between the Arsenal/World Class Hawks and the Commack Blasters at Mercer County Park. Despite torrential rains during the overnight, the field was firm resulting in strong play from both teams with the game winner to be declared the Red Division Bracket "A" winners.

From the very beginning, this was an excellent competition from both teams. The game opened with Katie playing left side forward and Saulty on the right side. Alyssa was again anchoring the central defense along with Liz and the entire team playing very well. Jen was outside on the defense and kept every wide attempt from the Hawks towards the touchline preventing any penetrating attacks. Meghan was winning numerous toss-up plays with Meredith playing well on the wide midfield. Katie G. made some terrific overlapping runs from the outside to help set up offensive chances throughout the game. Campy worked the outside midfield on the opposite side during the first half among her weekend assignments. Kiersten was aggressive and provided quality in both her forward and midfield positions.

Arsenal opened the scoring in the second half's fifth minute on a well executed through ball to a Arsenal/World Class runner coming forward on a nice angle resulting in a near side right post shot and a 1-0 Hawks lead.

The Blasters switched from a 4-4-2 to a 3-4-3 in the eighth minute with Nicky playing wide left, Katie centrally, and Liz wide right. Stephanie made a fine save against a break-away counter from World Class in the ninth minute while LB made a similar stop in the tenth minute. Both of these stops were critical in changing the flow of the game. From here, the Blasters settled into the 3-4-3 formation and pushed World Class deep into their own zone. Nicky served a cross behind Katie to Liz in minute fourteen which Liz shot over the keeper into the left side netting for the 1-1 equalizer. Commack had great pressue in the next ten minutes as Tori on the outside right midfield was looping balls to Liz who was picking apart that part of the Hawks defense. When we attacked on the left side, Meghan and Taryn were feeding overlapping runs to Katie G. pressing into the offensive end. While it felt like the go-ahead goal was there for the taking, World Class set up a nice 3-on-1 counter in the twenty-seventh minute that was well-feathered by Alyssa and saved by Stephanie.

An Arsenal/World Class knee injury in the midfield caused the last two minutes to tick away, an unfortunate end to what was an exceptional game.

The 1-1 final score draw favored the Hawks in the standings with a 1W-0L-2T (5 points) record over the Blasters with 1W-1L-1T (4 points).

Date: June 15, 2008     Venue: Mercer County Park - Princeton NJ