Ducks Hunted

Keeper Dave Cobb on the ground after ankle injury

It was a rough weekend for the Mighty Ducks. The Coed starting things off Sunday, and only eight players showed. The Ducks played almost the entire game with down a man. The Ducks had a lot to overcome, but it looked like they were going to do it. The Liz scored the first goal of the game when a cross found it's way over the keeper's head and into the net. Down a man, the Ducks managed to get a 1-0 lead early. But late in the first half, Keeper made a very costly mistake, turning the ball over resulting in a goal. In a game that would be so difficult to win, he makes a crucial error costing the Ducks the lead.

The second half, the tired Duck team was dominated. Cobb made save after save as the Ducks could not get anything going. There were mad scrambles in front of the net constantly, but somehow the ball never went in. Conor Milroy, a former keep, sacrificed his body making a leaping save on a wide open net. Cobb made a bad run at the ball. Conor injured himself on the play, but later returned. The game finished a 1-1 tie.

It was a success for the Ducks, getting a tie when down as many as two men, but in the eyes of the keep, it was a failure. "That score should be One nil... I blew it."

Perhaps the young keep was too harsh on himself... He made a countless number of saves, including a couple charging and diving saves. He kept that game 1-1, but in his words, "I may have kept it a tie, but I also made it a tie. I gave them that goal."

In the night cap the Mighty Ducks would be taking on Flints finest, and sparks flew right off the bat. "You could tell just right from the start the way they were going at us, and us them, that it was going to get chippy. I said that to myself after the first foul I saw, I could tell," said Cobb after the game.

But chippy doesn't even begin to describe what happened. Not even five minutes into this match, a Flint player made probably the worst tackle I have ever seen in a game I was apart of. It was late, it was from behind, it got zero ball, and on top of that, it got no cards. Oh, and it injured Duck midfielder Ryan Williams, forcing him to leave the game.

"It was dirty, it was cheap, and it was ****ing bull ****! It should have been a red, no doubt," said midfielder Joshua Andaloro when asked about the tackle. And he's right, it was at the very minimum a yellow. I don't care if it was early, it was a bad tackle that injured a player.

Captain Dave Cobb could be seen on the other side "conversing" with the ref after the tackle. "I said to him, 'What the hell is that? Why is he not gone? Why is he still playing?' he just said 'his call, not mine,' and I said back to him 'this is a joke, you're a joke' then he yellowed me. Of course I get yellowed, and the other guy doesn't, I wasn't happy."

It set the tone for the rest of the match, every foul call went against the Ducks, the players out cried, and the refs weren't having it. Erik Grodus got threatened with an ejection for shouldering a player. It was bad, and the Ducks played with anger and fire. The game went tied at 0's to the half.

Second half was a different story, the Ducks still played feisty, but not smart. Costly turnovers led to two goals for Flint's Finest. The officiating was still poor. And Obscene geasture, in the rulebook an automatic red, was made at Duck midfielder Grodus that went "unseen."

It was later learned that the refs were friends with the Flint Douchbags... Captain Cobb called IM services the next day complaining and calling protest.

"It's not fair to us that they get let off the hook because they know the refs. I just want a fair ruling. They played better, but the officiating was biased and terrible. All we want as a team is a fair match. That was anything but."

The protest is pending, waiting word from IM services.