A Saturday at Shattuck

The team traveled to Shattuck St Marys in Faribault (MN) yesterday to play two games vs Bonivital (Winnipeg, CA) and Wayzata respectively.  As I mentioned, I was a little nervous coming into these games as I didn't think we had a very good week in training.  Once again, the girls surprised me by playing some good soccer in the games, especially in the morning game against the Canadian team.  We play 2 x 25 minute halves, with a short half time break. 

We started tentatively in the morning game, and though creating a number of chances early on we lacked the finishing execution.  Jilly got us on the board with a sweet volley from about 18 yards out to put us up 1-0, and we didn't look back from there.  We tallied 5 or 6 by the end of the hour, with Millie, Brownie, Bidi, and Getch putting the ball away for us.

We had a two hour break in between games, and the majority of families headed into downtown Faribault to The Depot to grab some lunch.  We agreed to meet back at the dome around 1:45PM for a 2:30PM kickoff against Wayzata.

I've known the Wayzata team's coach Dominic for a number of years now, and I knew he had a solid group.  He had a U12 player (Kylie) and a U11 player (Brittany) who had both guest played with our younger teams in some events in the last year.  Dom does a good job with the girls and I think they'll be one of the top 3 or 4 teams in this year's State Cup in May. 

Due to some very poor service at The Depot, more than half the girls didn't arrive back on site until nearly 2:15PM.  Most had stuffed their meals into their mouths before hustling out of the restaurant to get back to the facility, and many were complaining of feeling queasy.  What are you gonna do? 

Friendly or not, I knew Wayzata had come to play.  They had obviously heard about our group and I think were itching to see how they matched up.  The Wayzata girls came out on fire, and had two very good chances early on to go up in the match.  Our girls settled in after that and I think we had the great majority of play from that point on.  We got three goals in the first half, two by Sting and one from Ripper. 

At halftime, I made a GK change and put Hans back in goal.  Mudd (our main GK) loves to play on the field and I know she gets bored back at GK when there is not much action.  Also, Hans is not making the trip to Virginia with us and I wanted to give the players playing that weekend to get more of the time on the field.  Hans, like the team player she is, didn't mind at all though she didn't touch the ball the second half. 

I think the game was an eye-opener of sorts for the Wayzata team.  Dom is trying to do what he can to form a high level team based in the west and I know he's met with some resistance from the parent group to do some of the things he feels would be best for the team if they want to play with the big boys. 

All in all, I was fairly please with the girls performance.  In both games I had to call off the dogs a bit by changing formation and rotating players around, but the girls played well on defense and were creative on the attack.  Though missing two players (Blondie and Macky) due to the State Basketball Tournament, the team came together well and had a good experience in prep for Richmond. 

Here's hoping for a good two weeks of training, and then off to grass!!!!