This Saturday’s game against the Elite was played at 10:15am and the weather was absolutely beautiful. It was clear and sunny, similar to last week’s game, but without the heavy wind. Unlike last week’s game, the Earthquake’s competition came to play, and play hard they did.

The coach of the Elite had his girls ready to play and told them we’d be a tough team. After a tough fought first half, the score was 0-0. The Earthquakes had taken some nice shots, but just missed on all of them. The Earthquakes defense was stouter, as the Elite never got any clear shots on goal. The ball did manage to get to the first half goalie, Sydney Place, who had a really nice punt, but for the most part, we weren’t in much danger of getting scored on.

After about six minutes into the second half, it was looking like it might end up in a 0-0 tie, but Jillian Weber managed to break free and take a nice strong left footed shot that flew by the goalie into the net. Within five minutes of that goal, the Elite had a breakaway towards the Earthquakes goal and Alicia Seronio fought hard to keep the Elite forward from taking a shot. Unfortunately, the referee considered Alicia’s defense a foul and gave the Elite an indirect kick just inside of the goal box. During the game, I thought the Elite had one girl tap the ball and then had another girl dribble the ball up and shoot, but looking at the video, it looks like the girl that initially kicked the ball also took the shot before anyone else touched the ball. Technically, that is not a legal play as someone else much touch the ball before the initial kicker can touch the ball again. If I had been aware of that during the game, maybe I would have said something to the referee, but as it is, it is way too late to complain about it now. The Elite player did take a nice shot that went over all the Earthquakes heads and just like that the game was tied up 1-1.

For the last five minutes of the game, many of the Earthquakes were getting pretty tired since we only have two substitutes and I don’t think I did a good enough job rotating them around to keep them fresh. There were some scary times when I thought they might get a second goal on us, but time ran out with Jillian Weber with the ball and heading towards the Elite’s goal. For the first time this year, the Earthquakes didn’t get a Victory patch, but then again, they didn’t lose, either. After watching the video, the Earthquakes were the better team for all but the last five minutes of the game, but since those five minutes were the last thing I remembered, I lost track of how well they played the other 45 minutes. Good game Earthquakes.

I definitely did not do a good job of coaching this game and we’re probably lucky that we were able to come away with a tie. Towards the end, I was feeling the intensity that was being generated by the parents and the other coaching staff and I’m sure I got carried away. Part of the problem is that this coach is another Country Club parent and he also beat my team last year in the last game of the year, so I was really wanting to win this game and I let the emotions take over. I will definitely try to be better about that and I apologize to you all. I mean, we all have to keep this in perspective, these are 8 and 9 year old girls playing recreational soccer for the fun of it. If I took a little bit of the fun out of the game by being overly competitive, I will try to put it back in next week.


Patch awards
Victory Patch: not this week
Goal Patches: Jillian Weber
Assist Patches: none
Blood Patches: Erika Shen & Brittany Jimena
Defender of the Game: Erika Shen
Hustle Patch: Brittany Jimena
Star of the Game: Jillian Weber