O'Fallon Flames Archives

1.21.06 : Flames Start Second Half On Fire And Climb Over .500 Mark

The Flames opened up their second half of the season with 4 home matches. The result: 4 home wins! Thursday evening saw the Crystal City Palace Eagles and the Soulard Magpies make the trip to O'Fallon.

The Eagles and manager Brad DeMunbrun held his club in the match early with some huge saves by the Crystal City keeper. 6 minutes in it was the Eagles striking first with an impressive goal from just inside the center of the shooting line. With less than 3 minutes remaining the Flames leveled the score at 1 on blistering drive from the left wing. The second half was all Flames. Goals in the 16th, 21st and 24th minutes sealed the match for O'Fallon. Final 4-1. "We started off slow, but finished strong tonight." manager Jeff Drake said after the match. "I was definitely pleased with the effort our club put out tonight."

Waiting in the wings were the Soulard Magpies and manager Christian Tragesser. Soulard is known for their tight smothering defense, but early goals in the 2nd and 8th minute forced the Magpies to open thing up a bit. The Flames played strong defense of their own, and a goal midway through the second half put the match out of reach and the Flames finshed on top 3-0. "Soulard is still early in their season and I wasn't sure what to expect tonight." said Drake. "This was our first ever match against them and I told our guys during warm-ups to be sure to play strong on the defensive side of the ball and the offense will take care of itself."

Saturday it was the Swansea Swans and the South County Cosmos invading The Crematorium. The Flames were looking to exact some revenge against the Swans from a 2-1 overtime loss earlier in the season at Swansea. Two evenly matched sides went back and forth in the first half and it ended scoreless. Thoughts of a similar second half went by the wayside early as the Flames quickly stole the ball from the center-off and sent a long through ball staight up the middle of the pitch into the shooting zone. After a long touch-up, the Flames blasted a low drive just inside the left far post. More stong defense and a smartly played possession-style second half finished off the match and the Flames emerged victorious 1-0. "Swansea and our side are pretty evenly matched." Drake said after the match. "We knew we had to play our best this afternoon if we were to be successful." A clearly digruntled Swansea manager Matt Brown was unavailable for comment after the match.

The fourth and final match of the week saw Casey Blick and the New York ('err) South County Cosmos take the pitch. The Flames came at the Cosmos with a high energy, fast pace and 2 quick goals in the 9th and 11th minutes put O'Fallon up 2-0 at the break. The Flames poured on more of the same in the second half, and after tallies in the 17th, 21st and 24th minutes O'Fallon ended a strong week with a 5-0 win. "We managed to continue our strong play this afternoon against South County and got the result our club was looking for." Drake said after the match.

With the 4 victories this week, the O'Fallon Flames have surged over the .500 mark for the first time this season (7-6-1) and strangely enough find themselves (temporarily) all alone in second place in the league standings.

(On a side-note, the Flames played all 4 matches this week wearing retro jerseys from the 1975 Carlisle United side and Raptor G2-F bases on loan from St. George Athletic and manager Keith Constable out of Bedford, Texas. Thanks Keith, I'm buying them from you!)