U13 USA Cup vs Kelix

Each year I leave the decision on whether or not to do USA Cup up to the girls and parents. If they want the time off they can take it or if they want to do the tournament we will do it. Each year they always choose to do the tournament. The quality of the tournament factors very little into their decision. The kids really enjoy the experience and they have a blast at all the events. It is like a vacation without leaving the cities for the kids.

(Parents might not enjoy it as much, but they are great and stay up at Blaine for an entire week while the kids run around and enjoy themselves. I hope the kids realize how nice this is by their parents.)

Our first game was against Kelix. Our girls know a number of the girls who play with Kelix and there were a couple of guest players with them that they knew as well. It is always fun to play against people you have played with and are friends with.

The game started close to 50 minutes late because we were short 2 refs. We offered to supply 2 club linesmen but they said that would mess up their paperwork and we could not do that. This was upsetting because the MN Thunder vs Burnley game was going to start at 7:30 and our 5:45 game did not get started until close to 6:40pm. When our refs did get to the field, I'm sure it was some sort of scheduling mishap and not the refs fault, they were actually very good refs.

The 50 minute delay caused us to start really slow. We were lethargic and could not get anything going in the first half. We had no energy and we were not using any of our skill. We created a couple of decent chances with our best chance coming with Jenna on a break away trying to dribble around the outside of the goalie only to have the goalie make a great save and take the ball off her foot.

After halftime we really started to play well. Our combination play was creating lots of chances for us and we were getting a ton of movement off the ball. At one point one of our center defenders had overlapped the outside back and forward to make a run up into the box and then the outside back followed her down the field with the ball and made a cross into her.

In the 33rd minute Gaffer hit a right foot volley from the right edge of the box into the far corner for the first goal of the game. In the 47th minute Bella hit a cracking left foot volley from about the same spot into the far upper corner to round out the scoring.

The second half was really fun to watch and hopefully we can play like this during the rest of the tournament.

S-Mack
E-Bella
A-Kari
S-Taz