The Thrill of Victory and ...

I thought we were finished for the year with our game this past week because we couldn't get enough players to play in a tournament in Salem. After chasing our tails around in circles for a while, we finally got enough players to field a team for seven on seven. I didn't know for sure that we would be playing until last night at about 9 PM, so it was a little ragged this morning and we missed one player through lapsed communication. In any event, we had 9, which was enough to give it a go.

It started well. The first game was against Salem. The skies looked ominous, but only a few drops came down. We went down early 4-1, but kept it close and stepped up our game on the defensive end to slow them down and come back to tie it by scoring in the last minute. In overtime, we stopped one push by Salem through a solid defensive stand and took it back the other way. One of our players (who has my vote for ground ball MVP for our season) took it in and put a nice low shot past their goalie for the W. It was a thriller and everyone was jazzed up.

We had about an hour and half before the start of the second game and had some brunch over at Famous Anthony's to recharge our batteries for the second match against the Vinton team. We had played them before and they were tough, with a lot of players at the very upper edge of our age bracket. It was nice to sit with some of the parents and girls for a quick meal - a nice and gracious bunch that, in retrospect, would have been a great way to end the day.

The first half of the second game was back and forth, we fell behind, but closed to within a goal at halftime. Then the rain started. It was a miserable cold rain that came down hard. I had neglected to bring a jacket and I could commiserate with the girls out there in shorts and jerseys. As the field got wetter and wetter, the size advantage that some of their girls had was just too much for our defense (one in particular could just go through them even if we had two or three on her due to her size advantage and stick skills).

A midfielder on our team (with the heart of a lioness) got hit in the mouth and had to come out. To her credit, she came back mad and teary-eyed but played in control and scored a few tallies. There were bodies (mostly ours) flying everywhere on the slick grass. It would have been to our advantage to have a more tightly called game by the officials, but that's not the way it worked out. We tied it up at 7, but just couldn't get another goal. Vinton played tough defense and we couldn't put it in the net even with some good opportunities, going down 10-7.

There were a lot of tears by the end (the last goal scored hit our stalwart goalie in the arm and gave her a nasty bruise - she shook it off and stayed in there). It was a really tough way to end it: cold, emotionally drained and on the losing end. I tried to rally everyone and congratulate them on a job well done over the season and thank each of them for their efforts, but the pathos was thick. The balance of the outing was kind of a blur. I forgot to hand out the Women's Div III lacrosse championship tickets given to us by the tournament director and drove home with my daughter in relative silence.

I'm going to look at the bright side - we came through when the chips were down to win the first game and just couldn't pull it together in miserable conditions for the second game. I wish the players moving up to the middle school team all the best next year and I'm looking forward to working with the returning players next year. But, right now, I have a headache.