Thursday night May 9 the defending adult co-ed soccer champions, Sato Real Estate, took to The Center of Anna Maria Island field against a tough Jiffy Lube team looking for their first win of the season. Off to a rough start, Josh Sato’s team lost their number two draft pick Joe Jones to a torn Achilles tendon only to be replaced by Zachary Lieb, a top choice any season.
With Lieb and two strong female teammates, Alta Bujarski and Sumiko Chipman, the purple team looked to be on their way to another tied ballgame, but in the high scoring game, Sato Real Estate earned their first win of the season.
Goalkeeper Jason Sato, older brother to Josh, was kept busy in the net with nine saves in the night. At the opposite end of the field, now veteran goalie Robb Marshall had eight saves of his own.
Jiffy Lube’s Ricky Anderson started the scoring action after four minutes of play giving his brother’s team an early lead.
A quick shot by Chipman missed the target but started the shooting effort by Sato Real Estate. R. Anderson made another strike at the net that was saved by Jason Sato.
Sato Real Estate’s Lyn Clarke showed why he is still a force to be reckoned on the pitch at the age of 79 with three goals in the game. Finding the perfect open position by the opponent’s net in a league with no offsides rule, Clarke scored his first goal of the evening, tying the game 1-1.
In the eighth minute of the game, team captain Josh Sato dribbled the soccer ball all the way down the pitch. Feeling the defenders coming strong, Sato passed to Murat Akay who gave it back to his captain for the shot and goal, giving his team the lead 1-2.
On the next possession, Lieb took a hard shot that went off the right post. Chipman struck again with a scoring attempt that was saved by Marshall.
With less than 10 minutes left in the first half of play, the soccer ball was batted around in front of the Sato Real Estate goal before Jiffy Lube’s Nick Bolli found his foot on the ball for the strike and goal, once again tying the game with the score at 2-2.
Three minutes later, Jiffy Lube moved the ball down the field with precision with passes from team captain Danny Anderson to Omar Polar to be finished by Stetson Mathews for the team’s third goal of the game.
With the score at 3-2, D. Anderson put the ball to the feet of Eliza Falliace. Fighting for possession, Mathews kicked the soccer ball out of bounds giving Sato Real Estate the goal kick.
On an unlucky goal kick by Jason Sato, D. Anderson got the ball right in the middle of the field to just outside of the goalie box. Giving D. Anderson this opportunity is almost always guaranteed goal. Not disappointing their fans, Team Jiffy Lube put another point on the scoreboard to go ahead by two goals with the score at 4-2.
Chipman found a clear field ahead and took the ball to the left corner of the Jiffy Lube box before passing to Akay. Akay’s shot went right into the hands of Marshall for the save.
To start the last 25 minutes of play Akay had two consecutive goals to tie the game to tie the score 4-4.
Unable to handle the strike by Chipman, Team Sato Real Estate once again took the lead on the Marshall mishap, moving the score to 4-5 with 14:35 left on the clock.
The Sato Real Estate squad moved the ball down the field again and finished with another goal by Clarke 90 seconds later.
Team Jiffy Lube came back with a goal of their own with a strong pass by Polar to Falliace in front of the goal. Falliace took advantage of her position with a missile that would have gone in the net but was assisted by Anil Akbulut to take the score to 5-6.
Holding on to the lead, Josh Sato, sporting two different cleats, worked hard to move the ball on the field, getting it to Lieb. Lieb’s strike was stopped by Sean Flynn who was now in goal for Team Jiffy Lube.
Clarke’s next shot was stopped near the close of the game. Team Sato Real Estate took its seventh goal in the game and the win by two points.
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