McBob’s Hands Full with Menacing Marauders
by Jason Kirkpatrick
Two weeks ago, in stunning fashion, the McBob’s Gael Winds and the Ale House Marauders both stepped up and took their first victories of the season. This week found the two teams facing off in a battle to keep climbing up the ranks. Kyle Christenson got the Gael Winds rolling with an early goal as he crossed the Marauder box. McBob’s passing was polished, and made for quick movements from Pat Foley to Matthew “Parkay” Goelz and up to Christenson for another Gael Wind goal soon after.
The speedy attacks put the Marauders back on their heels, but they soon found their game and Sam Hanrahan put two up top to fuel his fighting squad. Wind soon became a factor though and caused real headaches for both keepers. Long shots came to rest just shy of the posts and resulted in scrums a little too close for comfort. Both teams went back and forth with the scoring as Steve “Jake” Jakubowski pointed for Ale House, and Pat Foley put one deep into the net for the Gael Winds. As the quarter closed though, all of McBob’s scores were finding the net for a commanding lead of 5-0 (15) while the Marauders had to go up top for their points with just 1-3 (6).
Ale House was able to stabilize in the second quarter, and put up a couple points to keep the fight going. The Marauders held off McBob’s assault on the net with a commanding performance by defenders Tim Sulik, Trent Kielley, and Carl Chojnacki in the backfield. Keeping the Gael Winds at bay though was only half the battle, as the Ale House midfielders worked overtime to keep setting up plays and keep the Marauder offense chugging along. Scoring on Gael Wind goalie Dave “Chico” Monfre was still proving to be a tremendous task too, and Eric Lemmer and John McCarville were an always-visible force near the box. Foley and Parkay were able to do the McBob’s dirty work to keep their lead at half 5-3 (18) over Ale House’s 1-5 (8), but both teams knew the match was far from over.
Despite being down on numbers, the Ale House squad seemed to find and extra dose of Irish pride during their halftime break and came out in full command. The Marauders were looking for the open grass and beating their marks to the action. No play was uncontested though, as tough scrums ensued between Marauder Andrew “Rhino” Wozniak and Gael Wind go-getter William Gebauer. The match-up between Trent Kielley and Pat Foley was exciting to watch as well, and despite the early lead for McBob’s, it looked as if this was anyone’s game.