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Saturday
May312008

MRL Game #9 vs Bangu Tsunami White

MRLbanner.jpgOur second match up against our sister second team in 10 days.  Fresh off a very good accounting by the White team in the State Cup final, I knew they'd be coming into the game full of confidence.  BTW, I'm still working on that write up, in case you can't tell :)
 
Even after the State Cup final performance, I still believe we are 3 goals better than the Whites.  However, we have yet to prove that.  I understand I carry some bias with this thought, and I'm not trying to diminish the work the White coaches have done or the improvement this White group has shown in the last year. 
 
We were slated to play tonight at the Rich Valley Athletic Complex in Inver Grove Heights - one of the hidden field gems of the Twin Cities.  Not a lot of use by the small local club, immaculate fields that were flat and wide.  Great for us.
 
However, we are pretty banged up.  Nash out, casted and crutched, Maddie 50% at best with her back, Ripper and a broken wrist that she's been able to play with but not at 100%, Korky coming straight from a doctor's appointment for an ear infection, and Bidi out tonight with a school function.  Again, Ripper was able to play and Maddie could give us a few minutes here and there, but realistically, we had a grand total of 11 fit players on the day.  
 
Somehow, I had managed to double book myself for the evening with my U11s in the Apple Valley tournament with a 6PM game.  Our 14 game was set to kickoff at 5:30PM.  I couldn't find anyone to cover the 11s, so my plan was to get the 14s going and stay for the first 20 minutes of the first half.  Then truck over to Apple Valley to take the 11s.  Not ideal, but the 14s are in very capable hands without me. 
 
We started again in our 3-5-2.  The fantastic surface and large playing area saw us come out and press the attack.  The Whites had one or two forays into our end, but nothing dangerous.  The Blues were much sharper than they were in the State Cup final, knowing that they had something to prove.  
 
I felt confident that I'd hear a favorable result when Cook called me an hour later.  I didn't.  We dropped the game 1-0 on a late goal that Cook said was a bit of a fluke.  A free kick served in, redirected by our team, then spinning and slipping on the wet surface through Zazu's legs. 

I bet the White team was ecstatic about the win.  As they should be.  For me, though I expected the Blues to finish their MRL season undefeated, in the large scheme of things this loss isn't a huge thing for us.  We'll be able to use it to learn from and continue to motivate the kids as we work towards peaking later in June, and we still need to try and run the table at the mid-June MRL playoff weekend against the three teams from the Northeast Division.  More about this later.  It also will help the Whites qualify for the MRL playoffs, which I believe they would with a win in one of their last two games next weekend in Madison.  Good for them, they've worked hard and are playing some good soccer. 
 
So not a great result obviously for us, but not a tremendously negative end either.  
 
Cook may have some tough decisions to make come tryouts for next year's U15 team though as there are at least a handful of current White team players who could make a serious run at next year's Blue team roster spots.   
 

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