Well that sucked in about every way possible. If you’re ever placing bets on Rochester, always take a 1-0 final. Rochester executed a pretty flawless Rochester style game. The got a goal on a break, and then sucked the soul out of everyone and everything for the remainder of the match. Some folks over on DKonPittsburghSports.com liken them to the New Jersey Devils. I can’t think of any more apt comparison.
The big question going into this game, and still afterwards, is who is going to score? The second half of the preseason the team found themselves in a scoring drought, and it’s continued into the regular season. Kerr sure tried, but teams know to focus on him now. Moloto and Hertzog were hyped coming into the year, but they’re both dealing with injuries. We know Moloto can be brilliant when healthy. Hertzog look good in the second half, but he missed a lot of the preseason. Neither Parkes nor Boggs really stepped up on Saturday. So who is it going to be? Is this going to be another season where our star scorer leaves and the offense sputters like in 2014? I sure hope not.
There was a lot of early season slop in this game. Considering the conditions and it being as early in the season as you can get, these things should work themselves out. More often than not Campbell isn’t going to whiff on a through ball. Hunt is going to be better positioned as he gets used to playing with Campbell. What lead to Rochester’s goal wasn’t the massive defensive breakdown that we saw numerous times last season, but a couple small miscues. That’s a lot easier to fix.
All that said, and even though the Hounds lost, I thought they looked good. Other than their goal, Rochester never struck me as looking particularly dangerous. The Hounds on the other hand had a ton of opportunities while recording 13 shots. Granted only 3 were on goal, but there were several others that were dangerously close. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Fortunately though it’s only game 1. There’s 29 more to go. We can’t be spoiled with a 5-2 thrashing of Harrisburg every home opener. We have to wait until this Saturday for that pleasure.
Head Coach Mark Steffens
We’re not good enough in the air to be lofting long balls forward and we did that in the first half. We said at halftime we needed to get the ball on the ground. Second half we did that and we played good soccer. We created four or five excellent scoring opportunities. They weren’t nearly as dangerous as we were.
Kevin Kerr
Second half was great. That’s more like the team we want to be. But the first half we came out a little too slow. There were a few nerves among the younger lads making their pro debuts today. Hopefully now that’s behind them and they can build off that second half and move forward.
Marshall Hollingsworth
I don’t know exactly the number of new guys this year, but we’re all still getting to know each other. It’s going to take a while to get to know each other not only as soccer players but as men. We need to learn to trust each other and learn each other’s styles of communication. It’s a new group, but I’m very confident we’ll get it together.
The Hounds are back in action at Highmark Stadium this Saturday for the first leg of the Keystone Derby against the Harrisburg-Lancaster City Islanders. Early indications is another gut punch by mother nature. Dress warm folks. Kick off is at 7pm. Tailgate starts at our regular time of 4pm.
#UNLEASH
