The football team was busy at the end of last week, with tournaments on Thursday and Friday. Firstly, we travelled to Antrim Forum for the indoor Ballymena & District 5-a-side competition. We had five matches in our group, beating Moorfields, Kells and Buick, drawing with Ballykeel and losing to Gracehill, which gave us enough points to qualify for the semi-finals. Unfortunately, this saw us matched up with Carniny, who proved too strong an opponent and indeed went on to win the final. However, reaching the semis had been a good achievement.
Squad: Harry, Matthew (c), Brooklyn, Taylor, Carter and Denzil.
On Friday we headed off to Ballymena Showgrounds for the group stage of the 9-a-side Senior Cup, the most prestigious competition in our area. After a scoreless draw with Buick, we defeated St. Colmcille's one nil (with a goal by Carter) and then beat Ballymena two nil (Taylor and Ben scoring). This left us leading the group going into the final round of matches, however a one nil defeat by Gracehill proved costly and sent them through. Remarkably, ourselves and Buick had matched the exact scoreline against each opponent and therefore needed a playoff to decide the other qualifier!
A tense and tight game did not produce a winner, with their goalkeeper somehow managing to stop a fine strike by Daniel, so there was no option but to have a penalty shootout. Carter got us off to a great start by scoring, but despite hitting the target of the small goal (which was all they had been asked to do) more good goalkeeping meant our next two efforts were saved. However, thanks in part to a great tip over by Harry, Buick also only scored one of their three sending us into sudden death! At this point Taylor calmly struck home but so did Buick, so Daniel then volunteered for the next one and confidently smashed it in, to give us the advantage again. With Harry doing a good job of making the target seem very small, Buick tried for the corner but hit the post, thus sending us through to the finals. This was very unfortunate for Buick as neither team deserved to lose, but we were very relieved to qualify and hope to avoid penalties in the future!
Squad: Harry, Tyrese, Jude, Matthew (c), Brooklyn, Taylor, Carter, Denzil, Daniel, Ben and Peter.
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