Back Bay vs. Belmont Shore Game Notes (1/15/11)

Written by Carlos Jovel Jr

It was opening weekend for Southern California Division I teams and Back Bay opened at home to last year national finalist Belmont Shore. Needless to say the Sharks had a tough challenge on their hands.

From the kickoff Belmont Shore controlled possession and place a lot of pressure on the home team. The Sharks held tough and made tackle after tackle until Belmont Shore open the scoring with a combination of passes to score in the corner. The game became more physical and a mental mistake by Back Bay left the team with a player in the sin bin and Belmont Shore’s with a man advantage for 10 minutes. Belmont quickly took full advantage of the extra man to score a brace of tries and take a 24-0 lead. Back Bay held strong and began showing signs of life and put the visitors under some pressure. That pressure lead to a try by James Fraser right before half time. The halftime score was 24-5 in favor of Belmont Shore.

The second half began as the first started, with Belmont in control of the ball and placing Back Bay under a lot of pressure and scoring a quick second half try. The Sharks kept their heads up and showed great determination by scoring a converted try and making the score 31-12. Belmont’s experience and great discipline help control the rest of the match and scored a couple of tries to make the final score 41-12.

Even though the score might indicate that Belmont Shore won fairly comfortably, it does not show how physical a match it really was. Back Bay head coach Grant Reynolds was pleased with the effort put out by his team, “the boys made a great effort, but we can not give an experience team like Belmont chance after chance to beat us”. Man of the Match honors when to James Fraser (1^st side) and Francis Manyoky (2^nd side).

Back Bay will regroup as they will face defending national champions Las Vegas Blackjacks next week.

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