Playing it well...

So- we lost last night. 4-0.
But it was wonderful. It sounds kind of messed up to say that- but it’s true.

FACT 1: We have developed a game plan over the course of the season to play a very conservative, defensive style of play when we play teams that could eat us for breakfast. It was a tip that we got from a coach at Leon when we went to play against Chiles. Our strategy has been in these games: defend and keep it close. We don’t want to get stretched out and allow one two passing in our mid-field, which gets us back on our heels, scrambling. We want to create a big, air-tight space full of lots of bodies… if the team we are playing gets frustrated with this tactic and pulls back and just launches shots from 20-30 yards out, we will deal with that just fine, Thank you very much.

FACT 2: The thing is, that we are just the sort of team that can mess you up if you’re a Gulf Breeze or a Chiles or a Lincoln. We play smart soccer. We have fundamental skills. We coach well in the sense that we look for mismatches all over the field and make sure that players in key positions aren’t outmatched by their mark. We’re tenacious. We’re scrappy.

FACT 3: And when its called for, we can be a little gangster.
It has worked with varying degrees of success. Against Lincoln it was an EPIC FAIL. Chiles, somewhat success. But we’ve never really executed it that well. The reason, is that it requires soooooooo muuuuuuuuuuch patience. Really, it does. It goes against everything that these girls have been taught- and forces them to play a style of play that feels ineffectual. In any case, we’d focused on it this last week of practice and were committed to it last night. Our hope was to keep the game close and evaluate the game plan at 65-70 minutes to determine if we should start pushing.

It was breath-taking to watch. This style of play, BTW is counter to how these girls have been coached since they step foot in this program. It’s ugly in that we don’t have possession of the ball for very long, and so we don’t build passes out of the back. It was breath-taking none the less. It was awesome to watch because we actually executed a game plan. For once. Top to bottom, everyone on the team knew what we were doing and tried to do it.

No lie: Gulf Breeze was awesome. They were a great team. My heart was in my throat for most of the first half, where we held them 0-0 till 5 minutes left. And we played not only on our half of the field, but in our defensive third for most of the game. They also had the best high school player that we’ve ever seen. Her name is Maggie Rodgers and she is a baller. She is the combination of several of our players: she has skill like Lizzie, speed like Mandy, a touch like B-Rod and strength like Megan. The score line was: Maggie Rodgers 4, Wakulla 0.

Here is how she is a phenom: Our plan for dealing with her was simple: man mark with our strongest, toughest, fastest, most aggressive, most physical defender (Megan). Here is the thing about Megan- she’s deceptive, because you look at her and she looks like your typical California surfer girl/girl next door: she’s tan, blond, blue eyed, soft spoken, sweet disposition. And you don’t think she could play. But she is solid muscle- and not in a big lumbering kind of way. But all muscle in the, “I will kill you and get away with it because I look like an angel” kind of way. So our plan was to stick Megan on this Maggie person and hope for the best. This girl is a phenom because she managed to get away from Megan on a couple of occasions (despite the best efforts of Megan who was fouling, bodying up, playing overall physical ball)- but the second that she got away from Megan (which wasn’t often), she had to deal with Kellie who is ridiculously scrappy and tough. And if she got away from Kellie, she had to deal with Bre. And if she managed to get away from Bre, she had to deal with Kristine, who’s no slouch in the back. This girl got hacked and pushed and shoved all night. She got her jersey pulled and her share of elbows in the chest. Seriously, the only thing we didn’t do to her was an open field football tackle. And she still scored four goals. Only the really good players who have always been good can play like that- she is clearly used to being the best player on a team, the one who always gets the “treatment”. Clearly. Case in point: during the run of play, she hit a ball from 20 yards out. I thought, “Wow, Shay might get to that.” Then the ball dropped and curved AWAY from the goal and went side netting- far side. That was her 3rd goal of the night. Turns out, this girl is going to UF to play ball. UF. In the words of BT- “That is so B-A!”

The score of 4-0 doesn’t do the game justice- it was 2-0 till about 8 minutes left to go. We fought this team for 72 minutes. It was awesome.
Here is the thing that breaks my heart: everyone stepped up last night. Everyone. Dave and I were uncharacteristically intense with them during pregame…rather chilling them out- we got them pumped up. And that is the thing- if we had our Disney Movie ending we would have won last night. We would have gone onto the Regional Semifinals and won there and Regional Finals and won there. Then we’d go down to Ft. Lauderdale and win state. But that never happens. For us, the awesome end to our season was getting all of these kids on the same page- and everyone giving everything they had. Do you know how rare that is? How beautiful it is when you execute a game plan? It was awesome.