Unable To Beat The Heat, Kind Of [Soccer]

So, the rest of my Chicago trip was uneventful–other than a great Greek dinner at Athena in Greektown on Thursday night (including ouzo and many shouts of “opa!”), and a flurry of phone calls and emails as I was trying to board a plane Friday afternoon.

The plane was bound for Oklahoma City. It had been probably 4 years since I’d been to the OKC airport, and it has changed drastically. Still no one there, but it has been largely redone.

Madysen was on her way to OKC with a teammate for the Beat The Heat tournament in Edmond. Holly and the other kids were still in Dallas packing for the move. I broke bread with my in-laws at IHOP–yum! And Holly’s mother and I went by Holly and my first house, which Holly’s parents still own. We’ve come a long way, baby!

Speed ended up staying in Dallas to play in his team’s scrimmage. They lost 2-1, but he scored the goal. The little girls came to OKC last Friday night in a box van with Holly’s brother. Holly probably stayed up all night before she drove up the next morning.

Madysen’s team did very well, winning the tournament. In bracket play, they won 7-1 over MWC Fusion and 2-0 over NOKC United Navy and tied HFC Rhein 0-0. The NOKC keeper played the best game I’ve seen from a keeper in this age group. Amazing.

In the semifinal, they played Norman Fury Red (the girls counterpart to my former club, Norman Celtic) and won 6-0. Madysen even scored a left-footed goal. In the finals, they won 3-1 over KC Mystics. Mystics had only one “shot on goal” as far as I can remember. A ball was played through, our keeper came out to clear, and it ricocheted perfectly (or imperfectly as the case may be) into our goal. Undaunted, our girls came back and scored 3 unanswered to take the title.

The champs.