Cold But Triumphant Sunday

I so hope your Deacs made the chilly trek to Spry Stadium yesterday afternoon to watch our #1 ranked men’s soccer team take on UNC-Charlotte.  It was a cold and windy day, so dressing warm was a must.

Looked to be a huge crowd, too.  I’ve never had to wait so long tob buy tickets for a game before.  Charlotte fans showed up in decent numbers, but the home field fan advantage was definitely ours.

For most of the first half, there was a lot of action but no scoring.  There were a couple of yellow cards on UNC-Charlotte, and at times it looked more like a wrestling match, the guys were getting physical.  We had a few very promising shots that went just wide, or their goalie had a great save.  If we’d thought that we’d come in and crush their team, we were wrong.  They had good defense.

The 0-0 score went almost to the end of the game.  It was within the last 10 minutes that our very own Jon Bakero made a brilliant goal and the roar that came from Spry’s Army could have been heard from a great distance.  Our guys jumped up onto the wall of Walt Chyzowych alumni hill and hooped and hollered.  Jon Bakero took off his shirt, and underneath it had a shirt on that said SIEMPRE MI [something else, the pic doesn’t capture it].  He got a yellow card for the shirt thing, but from a sheer sense of excitement and rallying the crowd, it was totally worth it.  Pic courtesy of the Wake Forest Sports Facebook page.

UNC-Charlotte tried to even it up but they just couldn’t make it.  At the end, after shaking hands with the other team, our Deacs did their usual loop around the hill, then to the stands, to high five everyone who wanted to lean down over the rail to do it.  God bless our kids, they are so polite.  Here they are, just won a big game, #1 seeds in the country, and easily a third of them would speak to you as they hive fived saying something like “thanks for coming out, guys” or “thanks for being here.”

Classy.  Classy.  Classy.

Looks like our Deacs will take on Indiana at Spry Stadium this coming Sunday 11/29 at 1 pm.  If you live nearby, or if your Deac isn’t coming home for Thanksgiving, this might be the best antidote to the tryptophan coma.

GO DEACS!

— by Betsy Chapman