Hertha FC beats the Honey Badgers in close match
The faceoff between intramural soccer teams Hertha FC and the Honey Badgers Tuesday night ended in a 9-7 victory for Hertha.
The first goal of the game was scored within minutes by Hertha FC player Cody Watkins.
Between the first and second goals, the Honey Badgers took several shots but all were saved by Hertha FC goalkeeper Mike Cook.
The Honey Badgers scored their first goal when Tanner Evans got past Cook.
Honey Badger Juan Beccera showed his off footwork and put the ball into the goal, minutes later.
Hertha FC player Douglas Ward ended up taking a ball to the face and left the game temporarily but came back and put a ball in the bottom-left corner of the net.
“We could always do better at quicker passes,” Ward said. “A lot of the time we need to hustle back on defense. We could have been better on our defensive end.”
Hertha FC continued to take control of the game from then on, scoring another three goals.
“The attacking team, they pushed up a lot more and always had somebody near me and always had someone in front of the goalie, so I couldn’t see anything,” Honey Badger goalie Andrew Walker said. “It’s really hard when you can’t see the ball coming until its right there.”
Honey Badger player Eric Matta made an assist to Kyle Griffith who struck it into the corner of the net, to score his team’s fourth goal.
“I felt like my team played well,” Matta said. “We found our rhythm during the first half of the game. We stayed dominant until a couple bad calls were made, and from there we lost our heads, and it went downhill from there.”
Hertha FC scored another pair of goals when Josh Andersen made the seventh goal of the game for Hertha FC. Then, the eighth goal was made by a strong kick into the center of the net.
The Honey Badgers fought past Cook and struck the ball into the center of the goal. Shortly thereafter, the Honey Badgers made their sixth goal of the game after a player got past Cook to kick it into the left side of the goal.
Walker made a save for the Honey Badgers and fell to the ground, only to lose the ball to Ward, who ran in the kick.
Matta scored the final goal of the match, sealing the deal for Hertha FC, when he slid the ball past Cook into the center of the goal, to make the final 9-7.
– macael.ivie@aggiemail.usu.edu