Salvatore Durso

Lansing Christian vs Columbia

The State ranked 2 Pilgrims open up a very tough week against the Columbia boys. Two weeks ago they took the only team who has beaten the Pilgrims, Parm Western, to double overtime and a shootout loss.  We went out to watch the JV game as Matt Messerly plays on that team for Columbia.  The JV score ended up 6-1 in favor of the Pilgrims but the field became very soggy as it rained hard for the entire JV game.  The further up the rankings this LCS team goes the more fired up it seems our opponants are.  Tonight in the pouring rain was no different as it was clear that Columbia came to play.  With a wet field the ball moved slow and seemed to neutralize our team speed.  It seemed that we dominated the offensive end of game to find ourselves in 0-0 tie at halftime.  At the beginning of the second half with the rain falling hard Columbia struck first and took a 1-0 lead.  With LCS dominating and the field getting wetter it seemed as though tonight was going to be difficult to pull out.  Sal was playing stellar defense and Coach C moved him up and it ignited the offense.  He took a pass from Kyle and crossed over to Alex to watch as LCS knotted the score with just under six minutes to play at 1-1.  The Pilgrims never quit and the game became almost out of control as the referee missed many calls and at midfield found Alex Grice our senior in a pushing and shoving match with a Columbia player.  In my opinion both players should have at least gotten yellow card but nothing happened further putting the game out of control by the referee.  The Pilgrims within a couple of minutes struck again and saw a 1-0 deficit turn into a 2-1 lead.  Back to the defensive end Sal went and saw the LCS team snatch a defeat back into the win column.  What a poor officiating game by the ref's even the last 2 minutes saw the ref give the Columbia coach a yellow card, never stop the clock to see it wind down to no time left.  After the discussion with the coach the ref came over and put a controversial 1:50 back on the clock.  This writer thought if anything there should only be about a minute put back on .  The Pilgrims prevailed and stretched their record to 10-1-1 and continued their hold on the 2 ranked team in the state of Michigan.