3-1

So far this year we have been somewhat fortunate that the craziness that is our soccer team has not overwhelmed us enough to bring about a loss on the field. On Thursday, our madness finally caught up with us.

We have had 13 players are on our roster this year. One was pulled by her parents this week, two were in detention Thursday until 5, and one more (our leading scorer) had a family obligation- leaving us with 9 players to start our game Thursday. (One of the detention players planned to make it to the game by half time.

Our opponent looked to be the best we had faced all year- which is to say that they had a couple players with strong legs and decent dribbling abilities. For the first 10 minutes of the game, we were able to withstand their attacks - despite their 2 man advantage - but could not get a serious attack of our own going. Then one of our fullbacks went down with an injury that he felt he could not play through- that left us with 8 vs. 11. Not much after that, our opponent snuck a ball past our goalie - playing an incredible game up to that point to take the lead 1-0, which is how the first half ended.

At half-time I convinced our injured fullback to just play the entire second half in the half circle that sits at the top of the large goalie box. (It's about 10 feet wide and three feet long.) He agreed that he could do that and off he went. A couple minutes into the half, we got back our best defended bringing us up to 10 v. 11. From there it was a ba-ttle. We did a decent job of answering their attacks with a couple of our own- only their attacks ended with great shots and ours lacked the shot part. Our goalie was playing out of his mind! (Or as they say in Canada during hockey games, "Standing on his head!" - I think I have that right.) It was easily the best middle school goal keeping I have ever seen- we should have found ourselves down 5-0 at the least, but we were still right in it at 1-0.

With around 5 minutes left we finally got our chance as our second leading scorer broke through the defense and was all alone with the opposing keeper... only he tried too hard to set up his shot and ended up nubbing it right to him. Frustrating! We never managed another shot and lost for the first time this season 1-0.

I was extremely proud of our kids for playing 10-9-and 8 on 11 and almost sending it into OT. (If we had gone to PK's again I KNOW we would have pulled it out!) For all the frustration that this team has given me this year, they really played their hearts out. Friday morning I was kicking myself for not approaching the opposing coach before the game to tell him our situation and seeing if he would mind playing equal line-ups, oh well.

Two games and a tournament to go- all next week. Let's hope we can keep 11 kids eligible and get them all to the remaining games!