The Mixed Indoor Soccer grand final on Wednesday night was a thriller of a game which was locked up in a 0-all tie for most of the match.
It wasn’t until late in the second half that Ben Turton slammed home a goal to give Man Chest Hair United (MCHU) the eventual 1-0 win over CSA.
The two sides were evenly matched in the first half and the game resembled a ping pong match with the ball pushed backwards and forwards from end to end with neither side able to penetrate the goal.
Jade Buckman and Ivan Arcayo were a potent mid court combination for CSA sparking plenty of attack and they regularly foiled MCHU’s raids on their goal.
For MCHU, Josh Brown and Turton teamed up in the centre court to link with their female strikers, Shannon Purton and Bianka Jacobson, to send plenty of goal scoring opportunities their way.
Both sides played exemplary defensive games with their goalies, Brian Chapla (CSA) and Mitch Holt (MCHU), having to call upon all their goal saving skills to keep the ball out of their nets.
For MCHU, Nick Short was also invaluable in defence. Short showed he wasn’t afraid to use multiple parts of his anatomy to block CSA’s numerous long range shots at goal.
CSA’s Tony Walkinshaw displayed plenty of agility and speed around the court and gave cause for the MCHU defenders to always be on guard when he had the ball.
At half time the score was still 0-all.
In the second half, CSA fielded almost a whole new team. As a batch of late players kept on arriving, and were subbed on, including Pedro Quinteros who subbed in for Buckman.
Quinteros linked well with Arcayo and the South American mix added another level of intensity to the match.
MCHU’s superior fitness served them well and, and despite only having one sub on their bench, they were still able to match the fresh legs of CSA’s long bench of reserve players throughout the entire game.
MCHU made a tactical move in the second half with Jacobson moving from attack to defence and Turton came down court to link up with Purton.
It was this Turton/Purton combination in front of gaol that resulted in MCHU’s winning goal which Turton slotted home with nine and a half minutes left on the clock.
If Holt hadn’t already earned his ‘Male Player of the Grand Final’ status in the game’s referees minds by the closing stages of the game, he was most definitely the stand-out player in the final minutes.
Holt stayed tough under pressure when the desperate CSA players threw everything they had at him in an effort to rein back the 1-0 deficit before the full time whistle blew.
CSA’s Georgie Buckman, who worried Holt on numerous occasions in front of the goal throughout the match, was named the Female Player of the Grand Final.
At the end of season presentations that followed the game, Holt was named the competition’s Best and Fairest Male while Never Inbetweeners’ Michela Cartner was the season’s Best and Fairest Female.
Jade Buckman and Shannon Purton were the Male and Female highest goal scorers.
