Our U19 ladies crushed it! They beat some big clubs in the process. On the first day we won 3-1 and 3-2, so ok... The next day, the wheels kind of fell off the wagon and we quickly found ourselves down 4-0 at halftime to Focus Field Hockey Club, an east coast club with locations in 5 cities. What happened after that was nothing short of amazing. Our girls went back out on the court and hung around for the first 7 minutes or so before getting a goal. After that, they applied relentless pressure on Focus forcing corner after corner. We converted 3 of those corners on beautifully executed direct options to tie the game. Focus came back at us and also forced multiple corners, but ran into our brickwalled defence. Everyone on our defensive corner units knew their roles very well and we shut down every shot or covered every passing option they made! (Credit to Meagan for teaching them the corner defense and making sure everyone knew their jobs.) We got the winning goal with about 5 minutes to go from open play and then hung on to win 5-4. After the game, one of the umpires, an Australian NCAA D1 coach, remarked to me that it was awesome to witness a game like this and he couldn't believe that we managed to comeback. And we did it without a single substitute, for the entire tournament!
Our next game was also exciting, we fell behind multiple times to be down by a goal, but the girls kept battling back and eventually won 4-2. The next day we had an early morning game and we could tell the previous day's exertions had caught up with them because of how tired they looked. The game was tied 1-1 and looked like it was going to finish that way with about 5 minutes left. Suddenly they got a second wind and their ferocious intensity came back and they applied a lot of pressure to the other team who could find no space to keep the ball in their possession. We finally got the winning goal and shut them down to finish as Group Champions, having won all our games!
I can't say enough about this group, their skill, stammina, maturity, toughness and intelligent play was so gratifying to watch. Our club teaches players to be "The Difference Maker" on the field, we ask them to lead, not to rely on someone else. It's a lesson that I feel is never learned when you are surrounded by a team of perceived "all stars". Don't ever hide in a pack because then you never learn to count on yourself. When you depend on yourself for results, you will produce in the most difficult of times. It's a lesson for life.