Coach Baarts finally made an appearance on the Aggie Coaches Show this week promoting the team. Again, one wonders why he wasn’t brought on to do this when they were playing Texas Tech and Arizona here. Those are big name opponents, though they had good crowds there regardless. Maybe he didn’t like his team’s chances against them. The Coach did mention that Esme Arenas had been injured at the beginning of the season. When she came back, he opened up the offense, so that sort explains their overly defensive play.
I spent my day listening to a Rangers game, where they failed to show up with their bats again and lost without scoring. I also picked up some things from Dollartree, ironed, sewed a rip, and went to the mall to get a birthday present for a friend at work. Lunch was leftovers from a McAlister’s meal from work yesterday. It was a Club Wrap and a couple of cookies. It was very tasty. Lastly, I read some more from a pdf book about Filmation cartoons. Hopefully, I’ll remember to review it at some point.
It had been a beautiful day when I was out in the afternoon, though the forecast was for scattered storms. When I left for the game, indeed, there was a large blue/black cloud to the north. Approaching the university, I noticed the Football stadium lights were on. A rally was about to start outside with logs piled for a bonfire. This is for the big game with UNM on Saturday.
A slight, cool breeze was blowing across the field of fresh cut grass. It was nice. I was early, but the stands were almost empty. (Attendance would be 485.) The Band was next door practicing in the stadium. The Coach was wandering around after practice. He seemed a bit dejected. There was an ill-timed Grand in the Stands student giveaway scheduled for tonight. You had to think the students would be at the rally, but you also had to like the odds if you were a student and showed up here.
The Aggies were wearing their crimson uniforms. Esme would be starting tonight for the Aggies. Goalie Valerie Guha was wearing pink. It was a bit more contrasting than last time. The Blue Hens were in white with a blue letters with yellow trim and blue shorts. Very nice. From the program, they are 7-1-2, but I don’t know who they’ve played.
First Half
Without the students and the little kids, the crowd was pretty quiet to start. I could hear Val and defender Jena Johannes yelling on field. There was a loud guy at the top of stands shouting encouragement. Tom the Fan was here. I could hear him yelling at the south end of the stands. I could hear conversations in the crowd. They agreed about the bad timing of the Grand in the Stands promotion. Not much was going on on field to start, which also kept the crowd muted.
40’ left in the half, Esme took the first shot from outside the Delaware U box. It went wide. After a bad pass a couple of minutes later, DU got a corner. It was cleared out. The Blue Hens keeper, Sophia Hall, was playing at midfield alone while the team was taking the corner. 36’ a Blue Hen player had to come out. She may have gotten a bloody nose.
The Band next door started playing ominous music. There was like a low, disturbing hum over the field. I’m sure it sounded better inside Aggie Memorial. 32’ Meredith Scott downed a BH player, which led to a foul and a free kick at the Aggie 30yd line. This led to a corner, but no shots. 30’ Ariana Leamons made a steal that led to a long Aggie possession, which ended with Ariana Ellison taking a long shot. (At least, I’m keeping the two “Ari’s” straight by this point in the season, which was good, because they were on field together for about the whole game.)
26’ Ari E. stripped an attacker at midfield. Defender Kennedy Herrera came into the DU end and fired a long shot at the goal. It was way off, but the crowd appreciated the effort. 25’ the Blue Hens got their first good chance. Sophia Zeppos took a shot in the Aggie box, but accidently hit one of her teammates’ directly in the rear, which blocked the shot.
DU got three corners in three minutes. Tom started chanting, “We want a goal!” Save it for when the Aggies are on offense, Tom. On the last one, a kick went to a player by the net. Her header went high. On a counter, Ari L. took a running shot that went across the DU goal. Back on the other end, Marlee Cavitt broke up a shot at the Aggie goal.
13’ Meredith was by the stands and questioned an offsides call on the other side of the field. The line judge answered her. It was quiet enough that I could hear the conversation. 10’ Adiat Olaogun-Dickson took a shot that went across the Aggie goal. DU got a corner right after. Val slapped the ball away. They got another corner. Ava Sailee made a header shot over the Aggie goal. The Blue Hens got their eighth corner of the half at the 5’ mark. There wasn’t any noteworthy action after that. It was nil-nil at the half.
Halftime
Your stats are 0-0, 8 BH corners, and that’s it. No shots on goal by either team. Yeah. The Grand in the Stands went to a cute perky intern working at the game wearing a little white mini-skirt. It’s a fix! But she’s cute, so it’s okay.
I checked my phone. The Tigers finally beat Cleveland today to tie up the division again. Thank goodness. Wave the Wonder Dog and Bogey, his brother from another mother, were both at the game. (I didn’t get pet either of them.) Unfortunately, they did not meet each other. When I was coming back from the bathroom, I saw flashes in the sky to the north. The wind also picked up. There wasn’t much of a dip in the crowd after the half. They might have even picked up a few.
Second Half
44’ left in the game, Ari E. took a long shot that was caught. Running by the stands, I noticed one of the Blue Hens had blue braids to match her uniform. 40’ Ari L. made a pass to Meredith in the DU box, but it didn’t quite connect. 38’ the Aggies tried a long downfield pass that was broken up. Right after, Ari L. made a nice dribble around a defender and took a shot at the DU goal that was caught. That was the first shot on goal for the game.
36’ Jena broke up a shot on the Aggie goal. On an immediate counter, Esme outran the defenders and took a running shot that went wide. The crowd loved it. This led to an Aggie corner, but no shot. 33’ back the other way, a BH attack crossed in front of the Aggie goal. 31’ Yayu Wu came in and took an Aggie corner. They got another corner right after, but no shots.
28’ Andrea Alvarenga made a great pass leading Ari L. She outran the defenders and the goalie was left wide open. Ari didn’t miss and put it in. 1-0 Aggies! The crowd was fully engaged now. Don’t celebrate too much. 27’ after a foul by Kennedy trying to stop an attack, DU had a free kick on the Aggie 20yd line. The free kick was deflected and the shot skimmed over the defenders into the net. 1-1 and we’re back to tied. Constanze Viehmann got the goal and Gabby Riley had the assist.
26’ Meredith chipped a long shot that went way over the goal. Ooops. She came away smiling. A minute later, Ava Agresti was given a yellow card after an Aggie player was sent flying into the ground. It was on the other side of the field and I couldn’t see who took the dive. Right after, Ari E. broke up an attack in the Aggie box. Meanwhile, there was an angry dog barking on the hill behind the BH goal. I couldn’t see the dog. I assume it wasn’t Wave or Bogey, since they’re so nice, and there were other dogs there. Goalie Hall was looking over her shoulder nervously.
15’ Jena kicked away an attack in front of the Aggie net. On the other end a couple of minutes later, the Aggies made some great passes around the BH net, but weren’t able to get a shot off. 10’ DU on a counter. There was a pass to the front of the Aggie goal, but it was broken up. Mya Gonzales was on a counter right after and appeared to be thrown to the ground. There was no yellow on that, but a free kick from the DU 40yd line. No shot taken.
8’ Ari E. took a hard foul defending the Aggie box. 7’ off a long pass, Mya outran the defenders and took a long shot that went just over the DU net. The Blue Hens got a corner right after. There was a collision proceeding it. Ari E. seemed to get the worst of it and was taking a beating. Val was screaming to get everyone in position. DU didn’t get a shot off. 5’ the ball bounced in front of the Aggie goal loose. Val corralled it. On the sideline, Ari E. ran into the midfield flag getting the ball for a throw in. She let out a loud explicative in front of the crowd. She may have been a bit disoriented from the hits and she’s not a large girl.
3’ Meredith was blatantly tripped and this brought out a yellow on Ryan Mundy. This gave the Aggies a free kick on the BH 30yd line. Behind the action, Ari E. was squatting at midfield and seemed exhausted. There wasn’t a shot. Suddenly, the wind started gusting. A storm was coming in. The game ended. It was another tie, 1-1. Ari E. was again crouching on field after the game. She may have been cramped or just really beaten up.
The Aggies were up 10-7 in shots and 2-1 in shots on goal. It wasn’t my imagination: there wasn’t a lot of offense in this game. Delaware had a 9-3 advantage in corners. Blue Hen Constanze Viehmann gets a Gameball for her equalizer. Ariana Leamons gets an obvious one for her Aggie goal. I’ll hand one to Ariana Ellison, as well. She seemed to be gritting it out on the field late.
The crowd evacuated with the final horn. The girls reluctantly waved to the fleeing crowd and then beat a hasty retreat. A dusty haze hung over the stadium lights as I left, but no rain or storm manifested. The dust in the air, or me not putting on my jacket when the wind made it colder, gave me a slight cold when I got home. I was doing okay later after some chicken noodle soup.
The best I can say for this game is that it was easy to type up. Of course, that was because not much happened. You could almost see that Blue Hen goal coming right after the Aggie goal. I’d seen that happen in other games. Again, in spite of their record, I’m not sure how good Delaware was. We’re also not sure if the Aggies are as bad as the record says they are, but so far they’re holding their own in conference.
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