Memories in Bloom: Soccer Star!

So here we go - we may use a bit of soccer "jargon" that we learned a couple of weeks ago (but I promise I'll exlain). Abbi was asked to play in an all girls tourny (tournament - ha) a couple of weekends backs. We agreed since she had never been "selected" before and it was a once in a while thing. It was sooooo much fun but also a TON of stress - not sure how the mama's who do this every weekend handle it - honestly!

Here's the recap:

Pre-game warm-ups: I may be weird but the "rituals" of the sports are often my favorite parts - stretches, post-game handshakes, etc. Love that the coach is running with them.

and back.

We won the first game 5-1. Abbi scored 3 of our goals! We started off amazing!

Then we ran into Tallahassee.. these "little" girls were goooodddd (and fast!) oh my. This number 8 gave our entire team a run for their money. We lost 2-0. I do love this action shot of Abbi - red #17.

Another part I love is team strategy meetings - so cool - I would say cute but that might not be very appropriate for these fierce girls.

So the breakdown goes like this: Game 1 - 5 to 1 - we won. Game 2 - 2 to 0 - we lost. Game 3 - 2-0 we won (this was by far the "grittiest" (hard fought) game of the tourny) This one had losts of pushing, shoving by the opposing team which turned out to put the first in our girls and we made it to the Championship game. Game 4 - 3 to 2 - we lost by penalty kicks! This is Abbi "burying" hers _ code for shot it right past the goalie who didn't have a chance of stopping it!

We (mean David and I) are convinced games should not be decided this way. Totally not cool:(

On the bright side, the Arnsenal came in second! It's the very first time they have played together as a team. (The winners - Tallahassee - have been playing together since last fall) We were very proud. Here she is receiving her trophy from Coach Rigby - this was a huge curve for her since she's only had one soccer coach the entire time and let's just say, personality wise, Coach Rigby is NOT Coach Brent! In the end, we grew to enjoy him but man was it a transition.