Carman Valley Leader-September 1, 2003-Solid effort fails to add up to victory

 Missile shoot down Kickers in close contest
By Gene Still

— A valiant effort by a depleted lineup wasn’t enough for the Carman Kickers as they dropped a hard fought 1-0 decision to the visiting St. James Missile. Kickers’ coach William Hoogerdijk said his Carman squad came up with a stellar effort but were missing two of their top forwards, including injured leading scorer Shane Vanveen who is out for the season. They were also without, arguably, three of their top defenders. Short bench“You don’t like to make excuses. But the fact is we had 11 guys for the game and it’s tough to play that way with basically no subs,” Hoogerdijk said. Despite being shorthanded, those who were able to play didn’t disappoint their coach. “The guys responded and came out and played really well,” Hoogerdijk said. “They worked very hard.” Adding to the club’s obstacles was the fact that Carman played the first half going into a headwind of around 40 km/h. But thanks to a solid defensive effort, in particular from centre-defense sweeper, Tyson Kamminga, and rover Les DeLeeuw, the game remained scoreless as the clubs went into the intermission. Their defensive stance also contributed to a couple of turnovers that quickly turned into scoring chances but the Kickers came up empty handed. Hoogerdijk said thanks to the performance in the opening half, the team began the second with high hopes. But their depleted lineup eventually took its toll as the contest wore on and St. James scored what turned out to be the game’s only goal.“In the second half we again played strong. But if there was one thing I was disappointed with, it’s that we weren’t able to play more towards the middle of the field. We were forced off to the angles much of the time,” he explained. “Eventually we just ran out of gas and they got past us on a break and got one by us.”