Ironically, what would be the chances of two teams carrying the same team name? This past Saturday the Garden City Strikers challenged the Plainedge Strikers at home at St. Paul's. The Garden City Strikers knocked out the Plainedge Strikers with teamwork, experience, hard work and determination.

The Strikers have come a long way this season and have done extensive traveling, learning what they do right verses what they do wrong. In practices and scrimmages, with the hard work of the coaches, the efforts of all are starting to pay off. The teams took the field and from the first kick of the ball, electricity began flowing in the air.

Both teams went on a defensive and tried to take control of the ball. But the Garden City Strikers were not about to let the other team have possession so long as they could help it. The Garden City Strikers started to read the other team, putting their plan of attack together on the field -communicating, calling for a pass and watching the defense as they traveled with the ball and dribbled down field.

The first evidence that things were going right was when Jillian Yoo took the ball away from a Plainedge Striker and started heading down field - a pass from Jillian to Taylor Hennig near the goal. That was all Taylor needed. Taylor took the ball and from the side ran center and fired it in for the first score of the game! There was much jubilation on the Garden City side of the bench.

Minutes later, in the first half, the Garden City Strikers again went on the attack. With the help of "The Brick Wall Defense," the Strikers were about to challenge Plainedge again. Garden City Striker Katie Trimmer got hold of the ball and passed it to Megan Martinelli on the left side of the field near the goal. Megan took the ball and hammered one in from the side to give the Garden City Strikers their second goal. The half ended with the score 2-0 in favor of the Garden City Strikers.

As the second half started the Plainedge Strikers changed their game plan and also shifted some players around. The Garden City strikers read into what was happening, especially with the ball in control at the Plainedge advantage. At this time the players and coaches made some changes. With the Garden City Strikers communicating on the field and working as a team, they shut down the offensive attack, giving them hardly any chance to score.

The Garden City Strikers were now in control, finishing the job with Colleen Metzler taking the ball away from the Plainedge Strikers and running and driving the ball down field to fire a shot on center to goal for the score. The Garden City Strikers now knew this game was theirs and all they had to do was run out the clock and here the sound of the whistle for it to be reality. The sidelines just kept their teams on their toes and wanted the great action to continue. The rest of the game continued to be a battle of ball exchange between the two teams. The whistle finally blew and the Garden City Strikers shut out the Plainedge Strikers by the score of 3-0. A big round of applause is deserved to these two teams for providing an exciting game that keeping everyone attentive and warm.