Nuke Soccer

By Rocket Robin Soccer In Toronto

CSL Result
Saturday July 4th, 2009

Final Score
North York Astros 2, St Catharines Wolves 2

Venue
Downsview Park, North York

Kickoff
3:00 pm

Highlights
2 min … Wolves Scott MacLennan GOAL
MacLennan is touched back ball and he blasts 25 yard shot to top right corner of net beyond goalie Arthur Zaslavski.

41 min … Wolves Matthew Stillman GOAL
Stillman gets low pass from near right corner flag and blasts low 13 yard shot into left side of net.

43 min … Astros Stefan Zlatanov GOAL
Zlatanov on left takes low 12 yard shot under diving goalie Tony Visca into middle of net.

93 min … Astros (Wolves own goal) GOAL
Astros Diego Benzi blasts 50 yard freekick down middle and Wolves Joe Conte jumps to block and heads 25 yarder into top right corner of own net.

94 min … game ends.

Notes
Attendance was about 100 on this hot, sunny day with a strong breeze from the west. This game had been scheduled all along at Downsview Park at the beginning of the season and was not moved to this federally owned site because of the City of Toronto workers strike.

Astros dominated the second half partly aided by the strong wind which kept the Wolves pinned into their own end. My friend Kris said he counted 11 corner kicks for the Astros. The goalie didn’t take goal kicks in the second half maybe in fear of blowback but let a defender take them off to the side. The last half seemed to last forever as the Wolves tried to hold on. Astros had at least two goals called back as offside. Astros Diego Benzi took almost all of the spot kicks.

Referee John Oliva gave out a few Yellow cards but the game wasn’t particularly rough.

Wolves were missing five starters for this game said their manager Armand DiFruscio after the game. Goalie Claudio Perri, defender Joseph DelPriore, midfielder Tony Mermigas, forward Carlo Arghittu, and Rudi Pukzinski (sp?) were not here today. DiFruscio said that four of the five were attending four different weddings. None of them were the grooms!

The tie was the first point of the season earned by the Astros after five straight losses. Their defense was stabilized by the return of defender Kurt Ramsey breaking up numerous Wolves plays in the first half and also getting to some headers on Astros free kicks and cornerkicks to send them into the Wolves box. Jarek Whiteman was another added player who stirred things up offensively.

The Astros had been featured on the last three Rogers Community TV broadcasts (and will be next week as well) probably because their schedule conveniently is mostly Saturday afternoon games which Rogers can edit and apply to a two hour Saturday night timeslot.