Summer is not over yet which was well represented by two things, first the hot and humid weather with around 82F and second the lack of motivation from the CARO players who seem to still enjoy the summer vacation. The Tigers were hosting Marlette High School which was the same opponent during the first game at last Saturday's Hank Mai tournament and resulted in a scoreless tied game. For tonight's non conference game, it was a completely different lineup as the hosts incurred two injuries (Sophomore Adam Fisch and Junior Aaron Pierce) in addition to an ineligible player due to his low school grades. The coach had to improvise to set up the best combination possible without these 3 key players.

Fair enough, the first half started fairly slow on the Caro side letting the opponents winning almost every ball and play. Despite the numerous attempts to score against the visiting team, it was just a matter of time to have the Marlette players find weaknesses among the Tigers defense (poor marking, not anticipating the plays, and lack of communication and positioning). First half ended with a 3-0 score to the advantage of the visitors.

The half time speech from the coach was not pleasant and deemed to be more stimulating than bringing down the players. Focus was on putting the effort, controlling the ball, be first to the ball, tight marking and better positioning.

Second half started with some position changes to resolve the enigma and trigger some positive actions. Indeed, the Tigers took matter in their hand and actually dominated for the first 10 minutes missing opportunities to at least close the 3 goal score gap. The Marlette players were solid in defense and were winning the ball in midfield and contained the more aggressive Caro machine. The coach decided to give more play time to the freshmen players to expose them to the physical game of soccer. Although, the hosts created some chances to score but it was in vain as the visitors added two more goals to end the game at 5-0 to their advantage which could have been worse since they missed a penalty kick.

On a positive side, this young team consisting of 8 freshmen and 5 sophomore players has great potential to grow and develop over the next few weeks. Discipline was "au rendez-vous" since every Caro player demonstrated a great behavior and sportsmanship.

The MVP trophy was presented to Senior and Captain Trevin Phillips who played in 3 positions (center midfield, center forward and sweeper). He also gave 200% of effort trying to create chances to score and also defending some dangerous plays while in defense.

Next game is at home again tomorrow, August 22 at 5:30 pm hosting the team from Davison. Hopefully, the Tigers will deliver a better performance tomorrow night.