Damn.
That best sums up my feelings after the Charleston Battery were defeated 2-1 by the Rochester Rhinos in front of 2,854 fans at Blackbaud stadium.
The match started out promising enough. Paul Conway scored a beautiful goal from about 13 yards out to end his nearly two month scoring slump. The Battery played some nice soccer, moving the ball all over the pitch and controlling a large part of the first half. Then the injury goblins visited the Battery once again. This time it was Andrew Lewis. He was subbed in the 41st minute after taking what looked like a knock to the mouth. In came new Battery signing Steve Kraemer.
The half ended up beat at 1-0 with Charleston looking like they wouldn't have too much trouble with the rest of the match.
After halftime the Battery came out and continued controlling a large portion of the match. But in the 68th minute, a defensive error by usually infallible Dusty Hudock resulted in the Rhinos tapping in the equalizer, after he dropped the ball after controlling it.
From that point the pace of the game seem to change with Rochester having the largest part of the possession.
The winning Rhino goal resulted in a good build-up from the back with Simmonds sending the ball behind the usually solid Battery defense to Yuri Lavrynenko who had a nice strike to beat the keeper in the 80th minute.
The Battery spent the last ten minutes pressuring the Rhinos and trying to find the equalizer, but Scott Vallow was able to stop what ever the Battery threw at him.
Now, usually I don't like to rag on the visiting team too much and try to be impartial to some degree, but I really didn't like Rochester. It's not just because they beat us (twice), but more because they seemed not to have a team chemistry. Sure they may play like a team but they act more like a group of guys who don't enjoy being on the same pitch with each other. Being on the sidelines at Charleston, I sometimes hear things that I'm sure are supposed to be between two players. It seems Rochester like to talk a lot of trash on the field and try to antagonize their opponents. Well, that seems go on between their own players as well. Numerous times I heard Lenin Steenkamp not only chastise his own teammates but belittle them as well. It just wouldn't inspire people to want to play on the same side as the man. Vallow seemed to be ignored every time he would bark out instructions to his defenders, and Simmonds seems like a lazy player. Maybe it was just a bad day for them or maybe it was something else but seeing some of this makes me wonder how much longer before the Rhino start to self-destruct as they have been hinting to lately.
It wasn't the Battery's best game of the year by far but it was nice to see Conway celebrating his goal. It was heart retching to watch Dusty after the first goal, sitting there in disgust with himself, but he is a man regardless of what his stats say and makes the odd mistake (We love you, Dusty, we do…)
Hopefully the Battery slump is over and Coach Ramsey will start to see the "W's" again and take them all the way through the playoffs, and bring a deserving Championship here to Charleston.
Dusty Hudock, Andrew Lewis (Steve Kraemer 41), Linval Dixon, John Wilson, Terry Phelan, Kyle Swords, Justin Evans, Kevin Anderson (Matt Farris 61), John Jones (Collin Phillips 67, Mac Cozier 86), Paul Conway, Steve Klein (Ryan Trout 80)
SHOTS: 9 (Conway 2); SAVES: 0 (); FOULS: 19 (Conway 5); CORNER KICKS: 1; OFFSIDES: 1; PENALTY KICKS: (NONE); CAUTIONS: (NONE); EJECTIONS: (NONE)
Scott Vallow, Craig Demmin, Scott Shweitzer (Carlos Zavala 73), Mali Walton, Kalin Bankov, Stoian Mladenov (Yuri Lavrynenko 70), Billy Sedgwick, Martin Nash (Temoc Suarez 52), Lenin Steenkamp, Hamisi Amani Dove (Jimmy Taner 56), Gegg Simmons (Dan Stebbins 89)
Players Not Used - Tommy Tadder
SHOTS: 8 (Simmons 2); SAVES: 2 (Vallow 2); FOULS: 14 (Simmons 4); CORNER KICKS: 3; OFFSIDES: 2; PENALTY KICKS: (NONE); CAUTIONS: (NONE); EJECTIONS: (NONE)
