Last Game

We had our last RVLLA game on a cloudy and cool Tuesday night at Salem. Overall, a really well played back-and-forth game by both teams. We really got after the ground balls and many, many players contributed. We had better spacing on offense and solid defense. An overall solid team effort. Once again, we had a nice save in the last two minutes to remain down one goal and got the ball up the field. We couldn't quite corral the ground ball after a strong run up the field was met with solid defense which got the ball loose and time expired with the ball in their defender's stick and we lost 10-9.

We fell short on draws (they have a girl who is very good at it who took almost every draw and we only beat her a few times) and shooting right at their goalie (she's big and very solid in the cage, but it doesn't help to shoot right at her).

I'm biased but it seemed most of the calls went their way (I believe the officials were Salem HS girls) and they weren't calling the three second checkable position rule. We'd play great defense and keep them out but they were allowed to retain the ball in a checkable position in our arc for long periods of time and finally get a shot off. By the end, we were just mobbing the ball on defense and giving them the open pass. This isn't the way we want to play, but the girls adapted to the game situation. By contrast, most of our scores were drives straight to the goal with a shot (which we worked on in practice) or at least we would attempt to pass when heavily covered (doesn't always work at this level, but it's good to see the effort). 

The season is way too short. I'm ready to play a couple more, but we've played everyone around a couple of times (except Lexington who we just couldn't get scheduled for a second round). By the end, we are playing much better as a team on offense and defense. I'm very proud of everyone who came out and played this year. We had some experienced players improve their game considerably and all of the first year players were contributors in some way by the end of the year. I'm really looking forward to next year!