Struggles is the right term. Every athlete knows that if you play team sports long enough you are going to have a few days like this one. A day where just about everything you tried didn’t work. Most of the time that would mean you would lose, and usually pretty convincingly. When both teams have that game simultaneously it becomes a pretty frustrating game to play. Last night Palm Beach Gardens and West Boca played a game that was pretty hard on the eyes. Late season injuries, young squads and poor fundamentals contributed to a game that was not won; it was not lost. West Boca opened the scoring at the 6:08 mark of the first unassisted on a Josh Schoenbrun dodge to the middle of the defense, beating Palm Beach Gardens goalie Armande Cocuzza. PBG tied the game at one on a Steven Smith fast break goal off a feed from Trevor Keena with 2:50 left in the first, and the period ended at 1-1. The teams combined for only 5 shots on goal in the period and totaled 17 turnovers in the first quarter. The second quarter was worse. The two teams combined for an incredible 26 turnovers in the second quarter versus a total of 5 shots on goal. Clears were sporadic; open looks were dropped and odd-man breaks were missed because the pass was off target or dropped. And the score remained 1-1 at the break. The highlight of the half was Cocuzza’s saves when WB did break through for open looks. The second half started in a similar fashion as West Boca took the early lead, scoring at 11:02 on Schoenbrun’s second off a nice left wing feed from Eric Koabel to a cutting Schoenbrun. Four minutes later Bobby Gaines tied the game with the first of his two on a broken play. A loose ball was picked up and he fired it home. The quarter ended tied at 2 as the turnovers continued to mount. The two teams finally settled down with their ball control in the fourth and the results started to come, although the first goal of the period was a direct result of a bad decision by WB goalie Scott Cheadle to force a pass to a defender in front of the WB goal. It was picked off by Gaines, who fired it into the open net just 58 seconds into the fourth. A minute and a half later WB tied the game on the first EMO opportunity of the game on Jack O’Connor’s right wing shot off a feed from long pole Jake Rubenstein. The teams battled back and forth until Smith put PBG back up on the prettiest offensive play of the game, beating his defender on a curl dodge from behind with 6:29 left in the game. With 4:06 left Shane Burnett stretched the lead to two on a dodge down the middle of the defense. And that’s the way the game ended as WB was tagged with a few frustration unsportsmanlike penalties down the stretch. The better fourth quarter coincided with a reduction in the turnovers as the two teams only combined for 8 in the quarter. The statistics pretty much tell the whole story: Face-offs: WB 7 – PBG 5 Shots: WB 24 – PBG 27 SOG: WB 14 – PBG 12 Turnovers: WB 36 – PBG 32 (60 in the first three quarters) Penalties: WB 3 – PBG 2, all in the fourth Cheadle finished with 7 saves on 12 SOG’s for a 58% save percentage and Cocuzza finished with 11 saves on 14 SOG’s for a 78% save percentage. Cocuzza’a play was the difference in the game. PBG was led by Smith and Gaines (2G each), Burnett with a goal and Keena with an assist. Schoenbrun led WB with 2G and O’Connor’s 1G. Rubenstein and Koabel added assists. For both teams it is one to just forget about and look forward. And maybe when its’ summer and you have nothing to do, find a wall and spend the extra time. That’s the only way to ensure you don’t go through this again. Good luck with the upcoming play-offs and thanks to the WB parents and coaching staff for hosting me (best music played at any venue yet and nice sportsmanship from the announce crew too). And thanks for the plug for the web-site!