Blood Sausage Breakfast and Who's the Bomb now anyway?

Although I do wish that I could have been in Tampa, “The Pub’s” not a bad place to watch a NCAA Div II National semi-final match.  Free coffee and juice, gracious wait staff, and a very cozy feel are only a few of the amenities to be found down in the Irish Embassy’s comfortable dungeon.  And the food is authentic as well.  I put in a brief, three month stretch of hitchhiking all around that little island when I graduated from college, and I must say that the pub food in Ireland is just as greasy and bland as it is here at the Embassy.  I don’t mean to say that the food is unpleasant by any means, quite the opposite actually.  On a cold December Durango morning, it was just what the doctor ordered; it’s comfort food, great for rainy or cold weather and perfect for neutralizing the effects of too many Guinness’s. 

Original estimates proclaimed a crowd of over 120 lively FLC Soccer Fans in the basement of “The Pub”.  The time delay from Mahoney and Lorne’s broadcast dictated that the radio be turned off and the sound of appointed, uninterested, NCAA announcers from the internet live feed be piped into the speakers of the FLC Fan Pit.  I was hanging out near the bar in the first half drinking coffee and wolfing down a satisfying breakfast special with Big Chris Aaland and overall spirits were high until Le Moines’ forward, Angelo Reina- the Nation’s second leading goal scorer only to Euan Percell- put the Dolphins up 1-0 in the 16^th minute.  From the north end of the basement it was difficult to see what happened and I had eggs and potatoes and fried meat in front of me anyway so I didn’t mind that Le Moines’ first goal was a mystery.  I was informed by Phil -the bartender with the heavy Irish accent and the cast on his arm- that the blood sausage in front of me, was so good, he would eat it raw.  I suspect that he was exaggerating, but I did find the black stuff to be rather tasty.

Like the free juice and coffee, the country’s #6 ranked Dolphin’s lead didn’t last long as Euan equalized off a Sam Morris corner in the 22^nd minute.  Barden scored on a Settle free kick in the 38^th minute and the boys went into halftime up 2-1. 

Although Phil kindly offered to write them a note, some of the drunken college students still left to go to class at halftime and I took the opportunity to slide right into the giant brown suede couches under the flat-screen next to Benj’s yellow wig and Casey and Todd and Cathy Roberts among others.  Before I could even get comfortable I had to stand up again as Barden scored in the 46^th minute. 

“Let’s open up the floodgates now boys!” I shouted, and they must have heard me somehow because they did just that.  Purcell- Barden- Settle- Barnd- Barnd!  Casey was getting all kinds of texts from Kieran- who was in Tampa- filling us in on details that the fizzling dud announcers happened to leave out.  The Skyhawk scores poured in fast and furious in the second half.  Between the goals coming so frequently  and trying to get spices from the blood sausage out of my teeth,  I actually had a lot of trouble having a respectable conversation with a much shorter haired version of Truman, “the Trubidor” Lockhart about his campaign to somehow get involved playing or coaching with a soccer team in South America.  “I think that Chiriboga might be my best bet!” Truman stated quite matter-of-factly and I agreed.  We decided to meet Monday night to watch the basketball game because Iverson- a long time Lockhart favorite- was coming back to Denver with the Sixers and Truman was hoping that Iverson might get a warm Pepsi-Center reception after the brutal slaughter that he received in Detroit.

Later in the day I was talking with my brother who said that during the game earlier, he found himself “wishing that Fort Lewis might save some goals for Saturday”.  I assured him that momentum holds a lot of weight and that the boys hadn’t blown their wad just yet.  And then I watched the second half of the Lewis vrs. Lees-McRae semi-final which was actually a very exciting match.  Lewis went up 2-0 and with six minutes left it appeared that we were going to have a Fort Lewis vrs. Lewis Championship but Lees-McRae scored twice in the final 6 minutes to send the game into a scoreless overtime and ended up winning the PK shootout.  I think that #9 ranked Lees-McRae have a few crafty midfielders and may be a decent offensive squad; but they looked fairly slow to pressure the ball defensively, and appeared to be playing a sort of low pressure, sit back and watch defense that I’m hoping our boys can exploit on Saturday. 

Benji just informed me that we set three new semi-final records, one for most goals in a half, one for most goals in a game, and one for largest margin of victory.  I hope I’m not stroking our egos excessively by saying this but our pinpoint passing and relentless offensive assault can come from any player, at any time, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find our boys picking apart the opposition on Saturday. I’ve gotta believe that an 8-2 semi-final result has to be terrifying for the Lees-McRae squad to be looking at all day Friday, and I’d like to think that certain unnamed coaches who might have questioned the quality of Fort Lewis’s competition throughout the season might now, finally, be giving some credit where credit is due.

Go on now boys!

Win just one more game!

Then there will be no doubt-

WHO’S THE BOMB?

FLC’S THE MOTHER FUCKING BOMB!