Thursday

What a fun game tonight!

Ever see those shirts that are half University of Michigan and half Ohio State?

When Shawnee and Elida meet these days I feel I need a shirt that is half Shawnee with a Grand Lake United shield in the middle and Elida on the remaining quarter.  Hey, my son does play for Shawnee! 

Lance Brown, Tanner Mayer, Matthew Daily, Nicholas Hoffman, Yunseong Lee and Jonathon Andrews have all represented both Shawnee and Grand Lake United.

Adam Ordel, Shawn Ezell, Jerod  Houston, Chase Watson, Garrett Brinkman and Ethan Schaeffer have all represented both Elida and Grand Lake United.

Here's something else... 6 of the 7 captains for tonight's match are Grand Lake United teammates when not playing for their respective high schools!  That's special!

Tonight's match was something of a family reunion for our Grand Lake family.  We love seeing so many of our "adopted sons" playing at the same time.   What a fun time this was tonight.  Both teams went after each other hard, but cleanly. Only one yellow card was issued and that was for PI or persistent infringement of the Laws of the Game as opposed to anything of a violent nature. 

A shout out to veteran officials Michael Lause and Mark Kleman who managed an excellent game. They let the boys play, talked with them as needed and blew their whistles when necessary. It is a pleasure to have such excellent officiating for an intense rivalry match.

You have all heard the spiel given before high school athletic contests about "friendly rivals."  That is exactly what this was all about tonight.  Both teams had their chances. Both teams played stellar defense. A little smack talked between friends. And both teams played hard! 

Well played gentlemen!

Good Luck to both Shawnee and Elida the rest of the season! 

Oh yeah, the match ended in a 0 - 0 tie, but that wasn't the real story here anyway.

Hopefully we will meet again in the OHSAA tournament.

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