Boone County 1 Cooper 0

Valid question unbiasedcoach... here is my take on it.

 

Remove what some would call the "best player" on any squad and of course it will have an impact, in how they play on the pitch, and emotionally. Take this sort of player off of Cooper and I think the impact is greater, maybe not as much on a deeper team such as CCH, but Cooper is not a deep squad by any means. I think the other thing that plays into this is the ages of most of the starters at Cooper, over half of them are only 14/15, I think it might be harder for them to deal with emotionally.

 

Another factor is injuries, O'Brien has been out since early in the Scott match, IMO... this is just as big a loss to the team. Some have referred to Cooper's offensive threat as R.O.S., only 1/3 of that threat has been on the pitch for almost 3 entire matches. Granted, 2 of these were losses but I feel that both of these matches could have swung either way, and it is not like these were not 2 tough teams either. Scott- there were many missed chances by Cooper, Boone Co- lone goal was off a defensive miscue.

 

So yes, I think the loss of Ross shows but O'Brien being out is also a huge factor. Getting O'Brien back in the next few days will be a big lift for the team, and maybe all they will need to make a nice run at the end of the season. I feel the boys have actually gained some confidence in the past couple of matches, they were starting to hear a lot of... you are nothing without Ross, season is now over, you have no chance at winning now, etc... Playing the last couple of matches with neither of these two players might actually help them out in the long run. The good thing about all these boys being so young is that their memories are very short.

 

As pointed out in some comments made by a BC parent last night... I can't believe how well some of your boys played tonight, match could have gone either way, it took 2/3 of our boys to contain some players, we are not looking forward to possibly meeting them again this year... much less the next couple of seasons.

Ah, I didn't realize O'Brien was out too. Yeah that hurts big time and even less threatening up top.