CU Elite Invitational- Tournament Champions!

Alyssa's soccer team participated in the CU Elite Invitational over the weekend. In another closely fought tournament (see Gatlinburg Spring Classic), the girls worked hard and emerged victorious. The girls won their second tournament of the season.

Here are some game details including pictures wherein one game I was able to get some really good shots of Alyssa:

Saturday morning game against Ohio Elite: The weather outside was frightful, although not as bad is it could have been. Rain was in the forecast for Saturday. While that, thankfully, didn't materialize, the morning (her morning game was at 7:50 am :() was quite chilly. Anyway, despite spectators' physical discomfort, the game ended up being a good one for us because we won the game 2-0. After the game, Alyssa went home with a teammate, Ainsely, in between games and Donnie and I went home for a couple of hours before he had to head back down to West Chester, OH where the tournament was held to watch her second game and I headed with Jacob to Milford, OH for one of his league games.

Here are some pictures from the first game:

Out of focus :(

For the team's second game, her team played Classic Eagles. I wasn't at this game because I was with Jacob. This game ended in a tie, 1-1. The other team's goal was offside and shouldn't have been considered a goal. But a small defender's clean tackle of a Classic Eagle girl who was near the goal and about to shoot the ball, took out the girl and she fell to the ground. While everyone was watching the girl to see if she was ok, a Classic Eagle girl who was offside and who the ball deflected to after the tackle, kicked the ball into the goal. Because the refs' eyes were on the girl on the ground, they didn't notice the  other girl was offside and the goal was allowed. One of the parents on our team jokingly referred to the goal as Alyssa's fault (she was the defender who tackled the Classic Eagle girl) since her tackle diverted attention away from the girl who was offside.

With a win and a tie, the girls would probably have to win their third game to make it the final game. The reason it was a probably was that what they needed to do to make it to the final was partially out of their control; it also depended on how another team (who was in the running to make it to the final) did in its third game. Depending on the outcome/ score of another game on Sunday morning determined if Alyssa's team needed to win and by how much. Alyssa's team won the third game against Ohio Premier, 4-0 getting max goal differential and the team they were vying with to make it into the final game lost.  Alyssa's team was headed to the final game!

Here are some pictures of the third game:

The girls celebrate after a teammate scores a goal.

When her team was up 3-0 in this game, Alyssa played some offense on the wing.

After the first game on Sunday morning, which was the third game of the tournament, Donnie and I went home for a couple of hours before returning to West Chester for the final game. Alyssa went home with Ainsley in between games just as she'd done on Saturday.

The final game was against Cleveland FC. We played this team last fall at the OP tournament in Columbus and won. But, it was a tough win and this team had done well in this tournament to make it to the final game. We knew it wouldn't be easy and it wasn't, but we won 1-0. The one goal we scored was on a free kick after a foul.

Before the final game- the girls on both teams walk on the field

...where they proceeded to line up...

One final group huddle/ cheer and it was game on!!

I happened to be standing near where Alyssa was positioned on defense. She/ I had our work cut out for us  from the get go :). I took this picture about 10 seconds after the game started.  Cleveland FC's offense challenged our defenders the entire game.

The girls celebrate after our one goal of the game.

The celebration was short lived because Cleveland was determined to get something started on offense.

Fortunately, nothing they did resulted in a goal.

Alyssa even got a little physical which is not her normal style...

This was an odd play...

Alyssa gets to the ball...

...cleanly tackles the girl and then when the ball was in front of Alyssa, she just stopped. For a moment, all action was suspended as the girls watched in disbelief that Alyssa wasn't moving. She was standing but she wasn't moving. Alyssa took a knee to stop the play. No one quite knew what was wrong with her. Her coach came out on the field to talk to her. Alyssa's hand was at her mouth so it was obvious something had happened to her mouth. But it didn't seem like it would have been the ball because it never got that high. The only thing we can think of is some part of the girl made contact with Alyssa's mouth. Alyssa had a wiggly tooth and when she was hit in the mouth, the tooth became very wiggly and started to bleed. That was why Alyssa stopped moving. She thought her tooth had come out. She was fine and didn't leave the field. The tooth did come out very shortly after the game.

Alyssa got the ball out but it resulted in a corner kick.

The girls played really well and it felt great that they won the tournament.