Madison- Round 1

  The director at the tournament was able to accommodate some of my scheduling requests when it came to keeping all 3 teams playing at separate times.  This meant that Team Nike drew the short end of the stick and had the early game of the day and breakfast was scheduled for 6:45 in the morning.  I contemplated letting Cook take Team Nike all weekend when I saw the draw but I went with my better judgement and I was down at breakfast a little before 6:40.

I arrived down in the lobby and found a number of the girls already down there and they were bouncing off the walls.  One of the girls informed me that she had been up since 5:45 and was ready to go.  In my head I made the comparison of these early risers to little energizer bunnies.  Once they turn on they are impossible to stop.

Right at 6:45 the girls who actually enjoy sleeping past 6:00am walked in zombie like fashion into the lobby, rubbing their eyes and wondering how in the world some people could actually enjoy being up at this time.  Slowly the energy of the early risers would wake the sleep walkers up and by the end of breakfast we had to remind the girls to be quiet since most of the hotel was probably not awake yet.

Cook and I arrived at the fields an hour and twenty minutes before kick off and we zipped through check in without a hitch.  Whew.  One task down.  Now onto the Hi Pod.

The Hi Pod arrived at the field about 50 minutes before kick off.  Two of the parents and I then went about the task of putting the missile launcher together.  After 15 minutes we had the base set up and the extension part of the Hi Pod ready to go up.  Then we turned our attention to the camera itself and how the screen and the wires and all the other stuff went together.  I started to wish that we had gone through the trial run last night.

After another 15 minutes figuring out how all the wires fit in we had the camera hooked up and it was ready to go up, but from prior experience I said that we should turn it on and record something first to make sure that it was working.  The camera was hooked up and the feed was working but the only problem was that the video screen was showing everything backwards?!  So I started hitting every button I could on the video screen until it finally worked and with 5 minutes to spare before the game I was able to get over to the girls and give them the starting line up.  Thank goodness Cook was here to make sure they were going.

The first game was against TOSA.  

We had our first really good chance 3 minutes into the game when Kenzie (RF) combined with Bella and Gaffer to get around TOSA's defense and crossed the ball to Carly but her shot was right at the goalie.

1st Chance from Andy Kaasa on Vimeo.

We got on the board in the 9th minute that started with LP winning the ball to Bella who then put Gaffer through on a break away.  Unfortunately you can't see the finish but she dribbled the ball all the way inside the penalty area and hammered the ball into the upper corner to give us the lead.

Goal from Andy Kaasa on Vimeo.

Since the halves were only 25 minutes long I put in the subs at the half way point of the half.  At that time I subbed all 3 forwards along with one of the center mids.  Up until that point we had not been offsides once and we had created numerous chances.  After the subs went in we were offsides 9 times in the remaining 12 minutes of the half!  It was unbelievable.  The tough part was that in almost every offsides we were either standing still offsides or the forward who could see the entire field in front of her was offsides.  It was a major case of ball watching and not knowing what was going on around you.

In this case it took us 15 seconds to go from one offsides call to the next.

From One Offsides To Another from Andy Kaasa on Vimeo.

At half time we addressed the off sides issue and went over how the forwards should make their runs so they would not be caught offsides so many times.

The second half was better with the offsides but we failed to put any more goals that counted on the board.  I had to leave with 10 minutes left to get to the U12's game but Cook said we put in 2 more goals that were called offsides that actually weren't.  The video of the game ran out about when I had to leave so I couldn't validate this but I guess that our reputation from the first half preceded us.

The game ended up 1-0 in our favor.  

After a long run across the entire complex and over the road to the other complex I arrived at the U12 game and saw them win 4-1 and they played pretty well in that game.

Team Swoosh's first game was against Appleton and this was one of the games that I was hoping would be a decent match for us.  Appleton's team an age group up at U14 won State Cup last year and I had hoped that this would mean that their U13 team would also be a good team.  

Appleton was a very tall team and we were unable to create much in the first ten minutes as the girls continued to figure out how we wanted them to play.  9 minutes in when Kayla's cross was fumbled by the goalie who recovered to make a nice save.  Then off the ensuing corner kick Kayla's first time shot went right to the goalie.

Half Chance & Corner from Andy Kaasa on Vimeo.

That chance seemed to get us rolling and LK started showing off her footskills as the girls began to move the ball better and we started to win a lot of corners.

Lk's Moves Lead To Another Corner from Andy Kaasa on Vimeo.

We got on the board in the 24th minute when a good ball from Ricky (CD) to Kari set up Cooney on an overlap that led to another corner for us.  Ricky sent the corner into the box and Sizzle's first volley was blocked but it came right back to her and she buried the ball into the back of the net with a great volley.

1st Goal from Andy Kaasa on Vimeo.

 At half time we praised the girls for how many corner kicks that they had won and we talked about the need to finish on all of our chances.  Besides not finishing the chances, the girls were playing really well.

The second half started and Sprout displayed some good moves to almost set Jordy up on a break away and then she had some more moves to help us keep possession of the ball.  It was great to see the girls enjoying having the ball at their feet.

Sprout's Moves from Andy Kaasa on Vimeo.

Kari was also having a good time with the ball at her feet and she was able to win 6 corners in the game!  Here are some of them.

Kari Wins Corners from Andy Kaasa on Vimeo.

In the 37th minute we showed that the EPL isn't the only place that needs replays to tell if the ball goes out of bounds when Sprout hit the side of the goal but the ref never blew his whistle and Jordy must not have seen the ball go out so she played on.  It was probably a good thing that we didn't score from the chance.

Replay Please from Andy Kaasa on Vimeo.

In the 2nd half our defenders were really starting to do a great job of moving the ball around the field and it was fun to watch. 

Ball Movement From The Back from Andy Kaasa on Vimeo.

Lydia (CD) also had some great moves from the back to move the ball up the field.

Lydia Moves from Andy Kaasa on Vimeo.

We scored our second goal of the game just before the end when Kari won another corner and Sprout volleyed home the ball.

2nd Goal from Andy Kaasa on Vimeo.

It was a good game for Team Swoosh and a good start to the weekend for all the teams.