Cooper 2 Carroll County 0

[Yellow Card]

Cooper Senior Night was well done this year!!!

 

Great to see all of the eight of the Seniors starting... and playing considerable minutes tonight.

 

O'Brien ended up with both goals and I think that Snow had the assist on both.

[Hellbird]

Finally got out to my first Cooper game last night and was glad I did.

 

I was really impressed with the ball control and passing for the Jags. I was even more impressed with O'Brien and his speed as well as ball handling, he was very physical in close quarters which was fun to watch.

 

For this being my first game of the year watching Cooper I will say it looked as if it was a tale of two halves. Although the entire game I would say Cooper more than doubled the time of possession, but in the first half they seemed to keep the ball in the center of their attack when moving forward which only led to a few chances. I made a comment to my wife that they really needed to send the ball out to their wings and take some chances with some runs. The 2nd half that seemed to be the key to their success, they spread the defense out a lot more along the back line and this led to some really nice passes into the box which gave the numbers advantage more equal than having 3 defense men packed inside the box taking on 1 or 2 cooper players.

 

Like I said, this was my first chance to watch Cooper so being senior day and all may have been the reason it took them a bit to start utilizing their wings like they did the 2nd half due to lack of playing together a lot etc.

 

Was a fun game to watch and congrats to the Jags on a phenomenal season they are having.

 

I will also add, Carroll Co's #32 I think he was as well as #10 are really nice players. The few times they were able to get the ball deep into Cooper's defense their passing was the best I've seen all night. The problem for Carroll Co. though was they were playing defense 90% of the game and their chances were far and few between.

[Yellow Card]

Hellbird - Glad you decided to come out last night, you were part of the largest crowd (by far), that the boys have had all season. It was nice to see a great showing by the Coop Squad and it was great to have the 35+ Cheerleaders attending as well... it was a nice touch for the Seniors.

 

For being a first timer, your comments are still pretty well spot on regarding the tale of two halves. I would say that most of this can be attributed to the focus on the Seniors last night, not only did the 8 Seniors start, there was a concerted effort to make sure they played in a large portion of the match in hopes of being able to get "some stats". The only underclassmen to start last night were positioned on the back line. To give you some perspective, there are only 2 Seniors that normally start and one other that plays more than a few minutes, I think that it was great to see all of them given a chance to contribute in their last home match.

 

The second half was definitely played a little differently as Cooper inserted some regulars... Carty, Hollifield, Snow and Workman... this allowed them to still control the middle of the field while also playing through their wings. Playing the ball through Snow in the middle of the field allowed them to spread out the defense and this opened up the space needed to make those nice passes to O'Brien in the box that you spoke of.

 

I was really glad to see all of the Seniors out there having fun last night, it is great that their last season at Cooper has been such a successful one.

 

I also agree with your comments about the Carroll Co players, a few of them did move the ball very well, I was told that #10 (Marshall) was approaching 30 goals on the season.