Just came back from the game; here are my two cents, take them as you will.
Very, very impressed with a few individual players on both sides. 8 on Irmo played with class, skill and heart the entire game, even when the outcome was obvious--I saw him play in last year's final as well and I'm glad that he was on Irmo tonight; I saw him comfort the Irmo defender who was directly the cause of the third NW goal, and I was glad he represented my former high school. 13 on NW had a great game, I felt he was pretty solid the whole way through, and Ricky and Dennis were amazing as always.
Despite all his hype on here, I was sad to see that Alex wasn't the "heart" of anything. He was sluggish when he wasn't on the ball--I saw at least two incidents where after a NW corner, he remained on the Irmo half even as they launched a counterattack, and his sportsmanship consisted of rolling around on the ground until the whistle was blown or it became apparent the ref was continuing play. Not half the man his brother was, I'm sorry to say. 4 on Irmo seemed to suffer from the same deflation of hype--a solid player, but not particularly special, at least in this game.
Overall, I would say Irmo was the more solid team, controlling the game until the last ten or so minutes, despite not being able to finish. The NW victory was the result of a few astounding players, not the work of a team, and seeing as Irmo has the younger potential (7 uptop was I believe either a pretty small sophomore or a freshmen--either way, he was a doing a lot of work) with more sophomores on field, so I think they're rising. Only time will tell though.
@soccerparent; I won't deny that the Irmo fans were pretty tasteless, but regarding the issue of no one telling them to be quiet--if you were in the stands, I was sitting to the left of the student section with other former students, and we told those kids to shut up/tone it down quite frequently. Now I'm not saying they listened, but we tried to remind them that you can support Irmo without resorting to profanity.
