Orange Legionnaire

Team photo taken last night at UC's Gettler Stadium

The Dayton Dutch Lions beat the University of Cincinnati Bearcats 3-2 last night, winning the game late off of two solid, goal scoring efforts by Americans Steven McCarthy and Eric Kissinger. The Lions comeback was fueled with exciting, high attacking pressure. As with 10 minutes remaining in the second half the Lions were down 2-1, but McCarthy took a nice pass from den Ouden and then muscled his way around a Bearcats defender and struck the ball with his left foot to make it 2-2.

McCarthy on his strong armed effort:
"I feel really good about it. Bret played a good ball up top, Geert flicked it on, and I was able to run on to it and find the back of the net."

You could feel the momentum shift onto the Dutch Lions side after the McCarthy goal, as the Dutch Lions (were looking like Flying Dutchmen after that) hitting the post two minutes later via a thunderous shot from Bas Ent that rebounded off the woodwork to trialist Miguel Gonzalez, who shot as well, but was also denied by the parrying Bearcat keeper. However, the deadlock didn't last too long; as Eric Kissinger scored 5 minutes after McCarthy, with what can only be described as a Ronaldinho-esque bomb. *You'll see that once we get the highlights up.

Eric Kissinger on the setup to his Ronaldinho inspired golazo:
"The ball came out nicely, got a good first touch and there was nothing open wide. I had a straight angle to the goal and it flew true."

On if he has anymore of those type of goals in him and how he felt to score his first Dutch Lion goal in that fashion:
"Number one: that's going to be hard to top. Number two: I think I needed that, I had a few mistakes in defense to make up for. So, it definitely helped to provide on the offensive end."

Earlier in that Second Half, Dutch striker Geert den Ouden also scored for the Dutch Lions tying the game at 1-1 with the first goal. Den Ouden notched both a goal and an assist in the game. For the opponents, the Cincinnati Bearcats had a good goal in the second half, right after den Ouden's goal, to go up 2-1 at the time. In the First Half, Cincinnati scored on a communication fluke goal that rolled into the Dutch Lions net making it 1-0 UC early on. The goal resulted from a communication problem between Moens and an American defender who were on different pages on a throw-in that was deflected into the Lions net.

Overall, the first half was not pretty but the second half showed some great promise for The Lions (who appear so far to be a second half team that starts slow). The Lions had the majority of the possession and chances in both halves (but especially the second), and it seemed that the Lions finally have learned how to convert those chances as the second half went on. In retrospect, not a bad building result for a team just going into their third week; as 3-2 against Cincinnati (with one fluke goal for the Bearcats) was better than a 1-1 tie with Xavier. As Cincinnati is a pretty good college team who were undefeated in Spring soccer (prior to facing the Dutch Lions) with a nice win over Kentucky 3-0 recently and a 1-1 tie of Indiana University (one of the top soccer colleges in the U.S.A.).

The Lions look to continue gaining form this Friday at their home stadium, Bellbrook High School, against Global United at 7:00 p.m.

**Apoligies for the delay in posting about the game. Been messing with the video highlights of yesterday's game, all day today so far as a computer error will not allow us to upload the footage. Once we get the footage up it will be on here.

** By the way, reminder Banner making is tonight at 6:30, click here for more details.