Winning Soccer Games: This Feels Odd [Madysen]

As we all know, Easter weekend is meant to be jammed packed full of events and distractions. So in addition to Easter picnics and other Easter miscellany, how about a soccer tournament? Sounds awesome. In actuality, it was a great opportunity to guest play with her old Royal 94 team, which she left under unfortunate circumstances. They were playing in the Spring Classic Invitational here in Dallas.

Their first game was early morning on Good Friday against Albion Hurricanes 94G Blue. It was an auspicious beginning for Royal as they played pretty poorly–they never really took control of the game. Nevertheless, they won 3-1. Having been playing high school ball for the last couple of months, it was clear that Madysen was little out of sorts at the advanced speed of play–as she told the coach, “I haven’t really played soccer in about four months.”–but she did well enough.

The pregame huddle

Madysen's first touch

Look! The ball!

The second game, on Friday afternoon, was against Andromeda 94. Again, Royal struggled mightly to play its game, but won 2-0. The referee was a substitution Nazi–not allowing a substitute to set one toe onto the field until the player coming off was completely and totally off the field. And he couldn’t see a hooking foul to save his life.

Maybe Madysen does defend now?

On Saturday morning, their final bracket game was against NOKC United Red. Royal put together a quality game against a quality opponent and won 2-0. That win put them into the quarterfinals that afternoon against Vestavia Hills SC Attack from Alabama. For whatever reason, Royal again struggled to play its game but managed a comfortable 4-0 win.

So the semifinals were Sunday morning–this is Easter, mind you–and a rematch against NOKC United Red. (Which makes absolutely no sense, but whatever. The other semifinal match was a rematch too.) Sunday was much cooler and the game was much tighter than the first game, each team having a couple of quality chances go begging. In the last two minutes of regulation, Royal scored (on an assist by Madysen), but it was called back for offside even though it was an incorrect call and the linesman was way out of position. So on to extra time we went. In that time, Royal finally got a goal (that counted) and won 1-0. Great game.

The finals pitted Royal against Pride Predators 94 from Colorado Springs. Royal put together a pretty good game, winning 3-0 to take the tournament championship. Madysen really enjoyed it.

Coach hides behind the Championship trophy

Madysen gets her medal

The Champions

The Champions in artsy black & white