A few tidbits from practice:
- Will Johnson is intense!: Javi swept out his legs on a tackle during a drill and Will got up in his face. Anyone who knows Javi knows he's one of the nicest guys on the team, and didn't do it intentionally, but Will wouldn't back down. Of course calmer heads prevailed and I'm sure that they made nice after practice.
- Both Balc and Harada were still with the team as trialists.
- Andy and Fabian were the only two missing players I believe.
- Nate Sturgis participated in a competitive drill. This was the first time I've seen him do that since the injury.
- They spent about 1/2 hour in a full length scrimmage. It looked like it was starters versus reserves. Robbie Russell and Dema Kovalenko took the place of Ian Joy (who was on the sideline stretching) and Andy Williams who is away with the Jamaican NT. Andy will be available for Sat.
- Will Johnson drilled a couple of great strikes past Seitz and Reynish.
- Javi had a beautiful free kick from the top of the box that went around the wall and into the net past a diving Reynish. Javi followed it up a few minutes later with a nice side volley off of a long pass that he struck home.
On another front, the team announced a closed session drill with BYU tomorrow. That combined with the approaching Sept 15th roster deadline and the two trialists in camp has me guessing that one of the two will be signed for the remainder of the season. This is just pure speculation on my part. My guess would be Harada just because I think we have a greater need for depth along the backline and at defensive midfield role. How they accomodate this would be another story. They could cut a player, but I don't think that is likely. They could also make room by placing Sturgis or Espindola on inactive roster for medical reasons. I would assume that they'd leave the possibility of Espy coming back open, which would leave Sturgis as the odd one out. Again, just some guessing on my part. We'll see what happens by Monday.
