SG Soccer: The Home Stretch

 

Well, we learned one disturbing thing vs MVR – we are NOT a bad weather team. With a cold rain drizzling down, our warmup was awful (players warming their hands in their armpits is never a good sign), and subsequently our first half was dreadful, as bad as we’ve played in a long while. On our heels, slow to react, and uncharacteristically loose with the ball, with terrible first touches and so, SO many turnovers. On defence we could not get our body behind the wet skidding ball, and on offence we played like we were freezing and didn’t really want to be there. It was U-G-L-Y.

 

But we got lucky. In the first 10 minutes, Zoey bailed us out twice in a row coming off her line to disrupt golden chances for the Vikings inside the 18. And after Massey opened the scoring on a direct kick (it was a lucky bounce for them, but honestly they deserved to score with how much pressure they were applying), we somehow finished the half with the lead with one pretty goal by Eve and two lucky shots (one by Hailey, one by Raf) that the MVR keeper would definitely like to have back.

 

Up 3-1. After that ghastly display. Lucky indeed. With the banner on the line, we HAD to play better, no?

 

And we did, led by Player Of The Game Charlotte who just took over the game from the centre back position. Decisive and dynamic, she did all she could to drag her teammates up to her level with her determination and leadership. Julia had a great second half. Keira gave impactful minutes. Lexi ramped up her game. Haiden was active. And, most importantly, as a team we matched MVR’s intensity. The result was dominating possession and not allowing a shot on Zoey for 40 minutes.

 

Final score 4-1, but I can’t finish this without letting you girls know how proud I am for how you handled the physicality of the game. Despite many challenging situations, you did not take the bait. You kept your cool, but you didn’t back down, either.

 

We are a young team, but we were mature today.

 

And in the end, you got it done. You kept the dream alive. One more league game vs BCS this coming Saturday; if we can win or tie, we’ve done it. The banner. Our fate is in our hands.

 

Which is exactly where we want it to be.