The Caro Tigers were traveling to North Branch on a beautiful "summer end" afternoon with temperatures warmer than expected, thanks to the sun.

With still one injured forward/sweeper player, one suspended and another one not feeling well, the coach had to improvise again to make position changes and trying out the new freshmen players who didn't get enough play time previously due to lack of effort and experience in understanding the game. This team has 8 freshmen and 5 sophomores which makes it 68% of the team who need to be developed and learn how to play aggressive against experienced talented opponents and win the ball and the battles on the field.

After 15 minutes of play in the first half, the game was scoreless but the hosts from North Branch were dominating most of the time. However, the new players being tested gave a decent performance but not enough to challenge the opponents. After substitution with the regular players, the game has evened out and chances were on both ends but still without any outcome on the score board. The players from North Branch were playing a very aggressive game hurting some of the Caro players which hurt the team as Captain and Senior Trevin Phillips had to retrieve in the sweeping position to protect his goalie. Despite some attempts from free kicks and throw-ins in the opposing box, Phillips could not find the back of the net or even any of his teammates to challenge the North Branch goaltender. Then, with only 4 minutes to go in the first half, lack of intensity and attention let their forward player go through two defenders to surprise the goaltender and Captain Coby Fetting who was also hurting without the coach knowing (he disclosed that info during the break that he wanted to tough it up!) With again 2 minutes to go, another attack was in process by the opponents when one of them was not marked and was allowed to take a shot to surprise the motionless and hurting goal tender from Caro. Two goals within 4 minutes did not please the coach at all as this team worked hard to contain the opponents for 36 minutes.

The half time speech was as usual not pleasant as the coach insisted in winning the ball in the field and be first to the ball and most importantly not let them shoot and block them to protect the goalie. Freshman Ethan Fellows replaced Captain Fetting who has had enough with the pain and didn't want to hurt the team further with the lack of motion in the net.

Second half started with some position reorganization in the defensive and midfield areas. The Tigers tried to contain this hungry hosting team but the fatigue started to show up and could not compete to their level. However, some attempts merit some mentions where Phillips almost hit the target from a free kick and freshman Brady Rigg came close to score with a header from a long throw-in from Phillips. The hosts continued to put pressure and goaltender Fellows made some spectacular saves to keep the score reasonable with a 2 goal deficit. Despite the efforts and restructuring of the players' positions, the hosts were able to score another 3 goals to end the game with 5-0 to their favor.

The coach has to be patient with this young team and with two key players who are not able to play for another 3 games. Hopefully, the rest of the team and the youngsters will "kick it up a notch" to step up and help out the team in future games to come. The coach is definitely confident that this team will improve towards the end of the season and the next years to come.

Captain Goaltender and Junior Coby Fetting made a total of 13 saves during the first half allowing 2 goals during the last 4 minutes, while Freshman Ethan Fellows made the similar number of 13 saves during the second half allowing 3 goals.

The game MVP award was presented again, for his second time this season, to Senior and Captain Trevin Phillips who played an amazing game as a Sweeper making only one mistake by not blocking the shot (because he was hurting all along) to allow the opponent to score a goal, which is nothing compared to his awesome major contribution he is bringing to his team.

This concludes the pre-conference season which challenged this young team with talented experienced teams during the last 5 games. The real test would be this coming Monday against the visiting team from USA at home at 5:30 pm at the AYSO / CARO Soccer Club Field.