ODP- Game one- Meet me in St. Louis

June 24, 2017

ODP- Game one- Meet me in St. Louis

We found out a few days before we left for Rockford, IL for the SuperCopa Tournament that Alyssa had been selected to represent Ohio South in the ODP Regional Showcase in St. Louis. ODP stands for Olympic Development Program. It's a nationwide soccer development program. Each age group has team or teams that players can try out for and (hopefully) make. This was the first year that Alyssa could try out for ODP. ODP combined birth year 05's and 06's so her team was a combo 05/ 06. That means she had to try out against 05's to make the regional team. That placed her at a disadvantage. The advantage was that many 06 girls who planned on trying out decided to not try out when ODP announced it was combining 05's and 06's. Besides Alyssa, three girls on her CUP soccer team tried out and made an ODP team.

The regional showcase was held in St. Louis this year (apparently the location changes from year to year). It was held in the middle of the week- June 20-22. When we realized it was in the middle of the week, I told Donnie that I was fine taking Alyssa to St. Louis by myself. Those hours don't bill themselves and Donnie had just recently taken time off for the SuperCopa. Since Donnie is the "soccer parent" in our house, Alyssa had more than a little trepidation about me being the one in charge of her soccer experience in STL :).

Spoiler alert: I did fine as the soccer parent and Alyssa's team did really well in STL. Her team won all of its games. Older age groups move on to additional games but the 05/ 06's ODP teams ended at the regional level.

We drove over to STL with Alyssa's soccer teammate Annabelle and her mom Nikki. Annabelle made an ODP team but the girls weren't on the same team. We shared a hotel room to save $$. In all of the travel tournaments that she'd been to up to this one, Alyssa had never shared a room with anybody else from her team (when the moms are in charge, cost saving measures are taken :)) and was at first excited about sharing a room but then had a bit of concern. It ended up being nice to have a roommate to share experiences with and of course it was nice for the moms to have someone to share the hotel bill with :).

Both Alyssa and Annabelle's teams first game of the tournament was at 4:00 pm on Tuesday. Since we gain an hour going west, it was completely feasible and very desirable for us to leave for St. Louis on Tuesday morning rather than spend Monday night in STL. We left around 8:00 am and made it to our hotel by about 1:00 pm. Our hotel, a Doubletree was soooooooooo much nicer than the Comfort Inn both of our families had stayed at for the SuperCopa (although I have to say that the Comfort Inn, while lacking luxury did live up to its moniker; the beds were super comfy and overall I have no complaints about the Comfort Inn). The girls felt like we were at a luxurious hotel.

The tournament site was in St. Charles, MO about a 22 minute drive from our hotel. We were slightly late getting to the field (one of my only soccer parent failures (and it was minor)). My brother John met us at the field to watch Alyssa play. He lives about 2 1/2 hours from STL so he made the drive out to see her play. He loved watching her. He doesn't know much about soccer as soccer was not a game that kids played in rural Indiana when we were growing up. Alyssa's team played an Iowa team and won 4-2. Alyssa played defense most of the time she was in the game. She played outside mid for a short time. I thought she played well. The Iowa team was exclusively an '05 team as opposed to our 05/06 team. Our girls played really well; I was impressed with everyone. All the girls had good speed and skill. The game was fun to watch.

After the game, we headed downtown to see the Gateway Arch. Our family went to STL four years ago to watch a Chelsea game so Alyssa and I had seen the arch then. Nikki, Annabelle and John hadn't been up in the arch so we decided to do that.

We found parking decently easy enough and walked to the arch. We felt a little rushed for time as I had pre bought our tickets for the tram ride up the arch and we were pushing it a bit on time. It all worked out and we made it up to the top. We didn't stay long and the made the drive back to our hotel. By this time it was late (especially our time) but that didn't stop the girls from going to the pool to swim. Alyssa's CUP coach doesn't the let the girls swim during travel tournaments but there was no such prohibition for this tournament so Alyssa and Annabelle were super excited to swim. And that was our first day of the ODP Showcase.

Here are some pictures:

But first, swimming. I forgot until I saw the pictures that I took from the day that the girls swam at the hotel after we checked in and before we left the hotel for the girls' first game.