The next game was against the Ricon Valley United. First let me tell you that we where playing on their field, with their referees(players from other team called referee by name) and in their tournament. I guess I had the better end of it. The other coaches from(Fair Oaks and Novato) had much worst things to say about the home town refereeing than I did. The home team was much bigger than us and the referees let them use their bodies. We were getting bounced around real good. On about the 20 minute mark Crystal Garton had a break up the left side and just as she was entering the box, a big defender ran right up her back. Now the ball is in front of her, she's in the box, the girl goes right up her back and takes her out. The referee calls Crystal for the foul instead of giving us a penalty. See what I mean about the home town referee. Oh well, I shouldn't complain, we were only bit my the home town referee about 2 or 3 times, you should have seen Castro Valley, up there they were just incompetent. Made the weekend in Santa Rosa look real good. Well back to the game. About the 25 minute mark, games fairly even and Ricon Valley gets a throw in. Ball thrown in to this big midfielder, she loses her mark(the mark went to sleep), and dribbles into the middle and blast a bullet from about 35 yards. I mean I havn't seen a shot this hard in 12 years of coaching. A bullet, just under the bar, nothing my goalie could have done. Well game goes on, runs going back and forth, we had our chances and about the 50 minute mark the same girls, big midfielder gets the ball and does a little dribel up the middle. She gets one step around my midfielder and blast another bullet, same place, same result, Ricon Valley is now up 2-0. Well about 15 minutes left I subed and the fresh legs started making some run. By this time the other team was sitting on the lead(playing a 2 sweeper defense). Ricon Valley was in my box, my defense kicked the ball to my outside half who chipped it up over my striker(Sharon Potter) and she was off. She went by the defense like they were nailed to the ground. I think they were getting tried and Sharon was fresh. She beat everybody and took it in and scored(her first goal of the season). I was pretty. What could have been even better was she got the exact same run again with 20 seconds left, beat the entire team, had a one on one with the goalie, shot for the far post and the ball just went wide. That was it, Ricon Valley won and went on to the finals.
The third game was Sunday morning at 11:00am. We played the Peditors from Novato. Another big team, I have to find out what they feed these girls. We started out good. We controled the first 10 minutes. About the 15 minutes mark Jennifer Eustace had a run up the left side, beat the goalie and scored, we were up 1-0. Game went back and forth, we had a new referee that hadn't done any of the Saturday games. He was very good and fiar. At the end of the first half, Kelly Patterson, my defender was given a yellow card. She was triing the slide the ball out of bound(she's just learning to slide) and she showed the bottom of her cheats. She was called, good call. Game went back and forth, Novato scored about half way through the second half. That really pumped up the Novato team and the next 10 minutes where a dog fight Novato pushing into my box and my defenders not being able to clear the ball. At last the ball was cleared a coupled of times and we had a couple nice runs, amost scoring. Novato dropped back and the game was over. We are going to the consolation game.
In the colsolation game, we played well. It was hot before the game, no wind at all. They made a run we made a run back and forth and then on a corner from Ashley Smith, bad corner, ball came right back to her, she put it back in, it bonced around between a couple players and Lyndsay Adams put it in. Five minutes into the game we were up 1-0. Game went well from there, Annadel had the better of it, but just by and little, about 45/55. They kept making really nice runs up the sides, with the outside halve overlaping very nicely. Annadel even the score on the play very simular to how we scored. They had the ball in the box, bounced around between 3 o4 4 players before being put in. The score was now 1-1. Then with about 5 minutes left in the half, Annadel takes a big kick from about the middle line and the ball bounces right over my goalie. I didn't say anything, my goalie knew she sould have come out and taken the ball out of the air. You never let them bounce. I'm sure she will not let another one bounce. Well in the second half the wind came up and it was a real good wind. Annadel had the wind to their backs and a big advantage. We had a couple runs, game went back and forth. In the last 20 minutes, Katie Murphy had a run up the middle and almost scored. After beating 2 or 3 players, she was stopped right on the top of the goal box. Then Rebecca Eustace had a run now the left side, beating the defender. Right as the defender caught her, she made a cut and now had a one on one with the goalie. She took the shot and the goalie deflected it off her foot. A couple minutes later Annadel got another goal and the game ended 3-1. Annadel played a nice game, but we can't wait to play them again!
The scheduling in this tournament was our number one opponent. We had only a one hour break between our first and second games on Saturday and Sunday. While the other teams had a 3 hour break. Our first game each day we went undefeated, our second game each day we lost. Just not enough time to recover between games. I had four different players score, we have parity on our team. I've already had 9 players score this season. Both referees on Sunday where very, very good. Lindsay Adams had a great tournament. Kristy Silvas goal kicks where great, 50 yards, until injuried. She'll be back next week. Next week we start our regular season with a game against South San Jose & Almaden Valley. We can't wait until the league season starts.
raymond.smith@sun.com - Last updated September 3, 1996
Many thanks to GeoCities
Colosseum for giving me the opportunity to create this page.