ROUND 1: CRUNCH!!

 North Olmstead, Ohio




 The Crunch welcomed the Cincinnati Swerve to a sold out Soccerplex Saturday night with one thing in mind, establish divisional dominance. Once again, the Crunch came out on top. To be fair, this was the first ever meeting between the Swerve and the defending champs, and the Swerve made this game closer than the score would have you believe.


The Swerve came into the game attempting to match the physicality of the Crunch, and with the line-ups they put on the field they before you knew it the Swerve were up 1-0. That didn't change much as Crunch veteran "FLYIN" Ryan Minick started the scoring for the Crunch with a beautiful assist by Sammy Mutemwa to tie the game at 1-1. The Swerve would score again and take a 2-1 lead, but that would change when Ryan Minick would shoot a pass to Crunch new comer Ryan Wikle that would end up in the back of the net and would tie the game at 2-2 just before halftime.


The Crunch would start off the third quarter hot at the "SILENT ASSASSIN" Mike Derezic and Gabriel Pewu would score back-to-back goals to put the Crunch up 4-2. That lead would stay that way for the rest of the third, but in the fourth quarter the heat would be turned up even more as the Minick, Pewu, and Mutemwa would all score for the Crunch and put the score at 8-4 by the time it was all said and done. "FLYIN" Ryan Minick would earn the "MAN OF THE MATCH" honors for his performance which was well earned. Crunch head coach Lou Kastelic had this to say about the hard earned victory.


    " We proved to ourselves that we can handle a little adversity and still come out on top. I thought the Swerve played us very well. They had a great game plan in place and stuck to it, but i give our guys credit for sticking together and adjusting the way we are used to playing most of the time to play a slightly different way that lead to results. The young guys continue to step up and get better. It was good to see Pewu and Minick combine to have a good game."



This was the first of four meetings between the Crunch and Swerve so don't expect the fire to be out at all when these two teams meet again. Up next for the Crunch is a good old-fashioned Blue collar match-up as they welcome in their mid-west rivals the Chicago Mustangs for a weekend series. The Crunch are already up three games in the division and will look to continue that streak before heading on the road in February. Currently the Crunch are and even 8-0 at home dating back to last season, but if you know this rivalry a weekend series can go either way. With the way the Crunch have been playing it will be hard pressed to beat this team at home.


~IT'S CRUNCH TIME!!~



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