Finishing Up in Vegas

Game #4 vs Real Colorado

Cold, wet morning in Vegas.  Woke up to the early morning sounds of rain pelting my window, knew it was going to be cold and windy as well.  Tough conditions for a game, especially one on a hard, fast turf field.

Luckily, the rain swept past us and the game was going to be a dry one.  Still lots of wind though, and 45 degrees.  

We arrived at the field to find the park locked.  Perfect.  It wouldn’t have surprised us much to find out that the tournament officials had neglected to inform the park that there were games moved to that site.  Cook called Saeed, amazingly enough got an answer (not a message saying the voice mailbox was full), and Saeed let us know someone was coming to open the gates to the complex.  Odd were still long that we'd see a ref crew this morning

We finally got in around 7:30AM for an 8:00AM kick off.  Ohio Premier was already on site.  Their opponents (Utah Avalanche) and our opponents (Real Colorado) were no where to be seen.  Our thought was that they both went to the other soccer complex where the games were initially scheduled for 6PM last night.  

Utah eventually rolled into the parking lot at 7:35AM, with Real Colorado in five minutes later.  We saw a handful of officials as well, so we settled in to prepare for the contest.  

We started in a 4-4-2 Diamond that had proven highly effective for us in the last game and a half.  We had the wind behind us in the first half and looked to press the attack with the advantage.  

The girls played some of their best soccer to date, and Real, Colorado State Cup finalists to the Colorado Rush who impressed me in our game in Arizona a few months ago, were no slouches.  But full of confidence from yesterday afternoon’s result against FC Penn, the Goo Girls kept possession of the ball very well, stringing numerous passes together, working the ball from side to side on the field.  Obviously, the possession play helped us in these conditions as most balls over the top would have had to have been played nearly perfectly to pass the Real defenders, yet be weighted well enough to give our forwards a chance of tracking the balls down.   

We got on the scoreboard about 3 minutes from the end of the half.  After about 7 or 8 passes down our left flank, in to our forwards, and back through our midfield, the ball was eventually swung out to Meagan (RD) attacking down the right touchline.  Meg took a good first touch, beat her marking defender with a stutter step, then sent in a great low, hard cross that Bidi (RM) slid at at the near post to deflect past the Real GK.  Great goal for us at an opportune moment.  

Second half, though against the wind, the girls continued to play well.  Real was dangerous on some of their corner kicks, but other than that, we actually still continued to have a lot of the play.  Game ended 1-0 good guys in a well played game, all things considered.

* * * * *

Decent finish to a tough event.  Tough Friday games as we looked to adapt to the conditions (as all teams did), very good battle against the Region I champs yesterday FC Penn, and a solid team performance today to end it all.

FC Penn would go on to beat Sereno (AZ) in the final to take the Vegas championship.  I saw Sereno play twice in Arizona in January, but FC Penn was, to me, the better team.  

Now off to the Luxor poker room to try and make up for my weekend expenses!