After driving Maya to the airport (she is traveling to St. Louis to attend Washington University’s Accepted Candidates Day), I enjoyed catching up with former iRobot colleague Rob Figler (standing left) over lunch today. An extremely talented engineer/manager and one of the nicest people you will ever meet, we share an interest in hiking and the great outdoors.
Small engine repair and lawn mowing occupied the rest of my afternoon. I had to take apart and clean the fuel path on an old 21″ push mower that has been sitting idle for the last five years. Unfortunately I got it to work and spent the next 3 hours mowing our back field cursing my decision to sell our John Deere riding mower at every turn.
Fatigued from the 4-mile (calculated) tour of my backyard, I was not expecting much of myself during a makeup soccer match played under the lights this evening. Surprisingly, I managed to step up with a pivotal goal. An abbreviated account of the match written by the team manager follows:
Concord United 2, Medfield 2
45th minute – CU 0, Medfield 1. We gift them a penalty kick inside the box.
60th minute – CU 0, Medfield 2. A passing combination frees their young left striker who comes in on goal. Troupe comes off his line but their striker chips the ball nicely to the upper corner.
70th minute. CU 1, Medfield 2. A nice set piece cross by Fisch is glanced on a charging header by Michael. The ball heads left of the goal, and probably 21 players assumed it was going out for a goal kick. Carl’s back post flying header proves otherwise.
80th minute. CU 2, Medfield 2. On a counterattack George sends a long pass to Eric who finds Baltay charging in undefended from the right. Baltay calmly puts the ball away inside the back post.
This game was a tale of two cities. The first sixty minutes belonged to Medfield, with occasional spasms of life by us. Carl’s great goal breathed life into us, and after Baltay scored it even looked like we could win, until a spurt by Medfield in the last five minutes forced us back on defense. A well deserved tie, and I believe we carry the momentum into Medfield for Week 6.