Soccer Saturday- the lows and the highs

April 19, 2017

Soccer Saturday- the lows and the highs

Alyssa's soccer team played its second TPL game of the season. Her team played CUP South (Alyssa's team is CUP North). CUP South is a team from her club; obviously, its location is south with regard to the region of the club and Alyssa's team is north. Last fall, we played South and lost one game to them but we also beat them once. They are a good opponent. Coming into this game, we knew it would be tough. One of our strongest players wasn't able to be at the game because of spring break traveling. Also, our goalie is injured and can't play so a field player has be in goal until our goalie is better. To beat South, the girls would have to play really, really well. To make a long story short, they failed to play really well and lost really poorly 0-6. It was a bit ugly and not fun to watch. Alyssa played well- above average for how her team did as a whole. She played defense the entire first half. One ball did get past her that resulted in a goal. But, she stopped many threats and had to run a lot (and fast) to stop South's forwards and striker.

Shortly after we arrived home from the game (it was a noon game), Donnie and Alyssa headed south to watch a soccer game. This game was at Marr Park and her friend Chloe was playing in it. Chloe and Alyssa were on the same soccer teams two years but with the age change in soccer, the two of them can't be on the same team anymore. Alyssa went to Chloe's game because Chloe had invited Alyssa and Aniyah (Aniyah is another girl who used to be on Alyssa's team) to go to an FC Cincinnati game with Chloe and that game started at 7:00 pm. Alyssa went home with Chloe after Chloe's game and shortly after they arrived at Chloe's house, they headed down to the University of Cincinnati (FC Cincinnati plays at UC's soccer field- Nippert Stadium).

The FC Cincinnati game was fun to watch (Donnie and I watched it on TV at home). A record number of people were at attendance to watch Cincinnati's minor league soccer team. The evening was beautiful out and the girls had a lot of fun together. FC Cincinnati won the game 4-0. After the game, the girls got some of the players' autographs. Chloe's dad took the girls to Starbucks after the game/ autograph session. I think it was a perfect evening for Alyssa- friends (especially ones she really likes but whom she doesn't get to see often), soccer, ~~junk~~ fast food for dinner (Raising Cane's- Alyssa loved it) capped off by Starbucks. Chloe's parents are among the nicest people I've ever met . They tried to decline money for food for the evening but I think Alyssa was able to pay for some of her treats. Also, Chloe's dad was going to drive Alyssa all the way to our house after the game. That meant he'd go from his house in a northern suburb of Cincy, down to downtown Cincy for the game and up to our house way north of Cincy. I told him I'd pick Alyssa up from their house so he didn't have to drive so much. Chloe's whole family is so kind and we're lucky that our girls played soccer together for two years and became friends.

Here are some pictures of Alyssa's not so good and good soccer day/ evening!!

Alyssa is number 13 and has a pink head band in her hair. Her team was wearing white for this game. Alyssa is barely visible in this picture. She's chasing the ball (the other team's goal is just to the right of this picture)

Out on black....

Our thrown in...

The location of the game, Posey Hartman field outside of Lebanon, is near tracks to a passenger train. We heard the whistle of the train and I couldn't resist zooming in on the choo choo train :).

Back to the ~~drubbing~~ game...

During the second half, I was standing close to the other team's goal (when I take pictures during games, I stay in the same spot so for half of the game, I get pictures of our forwards/ midfielders heading to the goal and in the second half of the game, I'm closest to our defenders).

Here was one of South's girls heading to the goal...