This weekend was the start of State Cup, the final tournament of the season and the one we have worked all year to prepare for. Last year, we had a fantastic season and a disappointing finish at State Cup so this year we were out to prove how much we have grown. Our first match up was against FC Murrieta at the San Bernadino Soccer Complex. We have faced this team several times before, but knew they would come out strong to try and beat us. We started off strong and Taylor put in the first goal of the game in the first minute and 40 seconds of the start! Although not our best performance, we finished strong and won 3-0.
On Sunday morning, we arrived confident for our game against Orange County Premier...a team we knew little about. No joke...their keeper was probably 5'6 and 250 lbs, but our girls could not manage to put a single goal by her. We had more missed opportunities than I can count and just couldn't get our act together. We even said we looked like the Bad News Bears and lost a devastating 2-0.
We had a few hours before our next game and enjoyed some team downtime to try and erase the ugliness of our morning showing. The parents and coaches did lots of reflecting and head shaking, but the girls go right back to being kids!
Allison was a good, supportive sister coming to all 3 games!
Mary and I also shared some wonderful baby time with our newest Hawks family member, Joey.Our morning loss led to a must win situation for our afternoon game against San Clemente United if we wanted to advance to next weekend's round of 32. Again we started off flat, allowing an early goal as our defenders just watched. But our girls would have nothing of it and quickly responded with a goal of our own and then another. We led 2-1 at half and added 2 more for security in the 2nd half. The 4-1 victory gave us enough to advance to next weekend! We are excited to represent Temecula and play San Luis Obispo on Saturday. This was not the type of soccer we usually see out of this group so we are hoping they find their "A game" because they are going to need it to keep advancing.
However, our start-of-the-season goal was to advance to the 2nd weekend of State Cup and we just achieved that. The hard work has paid off and we hope to see them exceed their goal next weekend!!
