On the road to play in a new tournament for us this year at Sioux City North.   Besides a very cold morning start, the day actually turned out very nice.  Our first game was against Sergent Bluff Luton.  Sergent Bluff scores first off a corner kick ten minutes into the game even though we are controlling the ball and moving it well.  Nine minutes later we tie the game off a throw in that bounces around in the middle and Roberto Gaytan gets the ball and touches it to the side to Shawn Underwood who scores.  Good game most of the rest of the first half, but with just over one minute left in the half we beat ourselves by missing a clear ball, and they are there to take advantage of it and score.  We go into the half down 1-2.  We tell them they are playing way too well to be down by one, continue to mark, possess the ball, play the smart ball and we can win this game.  Well, less then 30 seconds in we get beat again and they go up 1-3.  From here now it is all Titans.  Three minutes into the half Shawn finds himself on a breakaway that has him one on one with the keeper.  The keeper comes out, Shawn takes the shot sliding in, the ball hits the right post and shoots back across in front of the goal.  One of their defenders tries to clear it out from the middle, but the ball hits the top bar and comes down in the goal.  Shawn gets the credit for being the last one to touch it; great job Shawn on the breakaway.  Now it is 2-3, here we come.  Twenty two minutes into the half Shawn plays a great ball across to Miguel Ramos.  Miguel takes control, goes to goal close to the sideline and buries a goal over the keeper into the corner of the net.  Tie game now, and the Titans are pumped.  We continue to pressure and attack the ball.  With just over three minutes left in the game, Roberto Gaytan has the assist as he plays the ball to Miguel and he works around the last defender, goes one on one with the keeper, draws the keeper in, and buries it in the back corner, putting us on top 4-3.  We now turn defensive for 3 minutes and go to a 4 man back.  Good defensive effort in this to hold onto the win by Colin Duffy, Brian Fountain, Cody Hicks, and Zack Shea.  We win the game and it is a big boost for us to win that first game on the road and in a tourney. 

The second game was a different story.  We played Heelan, and Heelan is rated in the top 5 in the state and is a team of big, physical boys.  We played the first half very well with them and managed to have several opportunities to score, but came up empty, and it always hurts when we don't finish.  I begged them to not give up something in the last two minutes again, then with thirty five seconds before the half we miss a clear twice, and on the third time the ball comes back out, we are not marked up, and they hit it home to take a 0-1 lead into the half.  The second half turns out to be just a little too much for us as they win the 50/50 battle, pressure the ball, and we go away from the easy pass and control.  We start playing in panic mode, just hitting the ball to simply stop them rather then making an effort to do      something of our own.  We lose this one 0-4, but we didn't give up, stop, or point fingers.  We played hard and fought as a team to the end. 

We want to Thank the parents for the sack lunch for the trip, the water and fruit between the games, and all the parents and family that traveled to Sioux City to support us, THANK YOU ALL.  We will travel on Monday to Kuemper to take on the Knights.  The JV game will be first at 5pm, please join us if you can to cheer on your Titans.