Avalanche's second
game was against the Storm. Unfortunately, the match got off to another
bad start when Storm scored in the 7th minute, with a ball over the middle
which seemed to freeze the Avalanche defenders and left Christy exposed.
However, Avalanche struck back only two minutes later at the 9th minute,
when Kaitlin had a nice cross from the right side that Kathy got a foot
on, and seemed to deflect off a Storm defender but into the net for a tying
score. "We got it back quickly, so that's encouraging," said Ed.
"But we can't continue to keep playing from behind and making it hard
for ourselves." Indeed, bad fortune struck again only 5 minutes later
when Storm scored again off a switch from right to left which Avalanche
players were unsure how to react to. "I was expecting we'd have a little
difficulty because we were trying out a new defense. So we shouldn't be
too discouraged because mistakes will happen. Let's just make sure we understand
what we need to do next time," said Ed. From then on, Avalancheplayed
tough and controlled all of the possession. Storm would play most of the
game fouling dangerous runs, and bootingthe ball out of play when Avalanche
threatened. The fouls were very frustrating, because it was clear that Avalanche
was more skillful and had better strategies than Storm. But their delaying
tactics worked, and Storm escaped with a 2-1 win. "I'm sure all of
us were disappointed with the result," said Ed. "We had a long
talk after the game, and I tried to explain that sometimes games do go that
way, despite your best efforts. Again, we'll learn from this, but we shouldn't
linger long on the score. We know we are capable of playing good soccer
if we play well from the beginning to the end of the match." Fortunately
that night, the team had a great dinner at a local Napa restaurant. The
parents enjoyed the excellent libations (meaning wine, for all you taking
SAT's). Ed, maybe influenced a bit too muc!h by the wine, made a toast to
the team and parents. A good time was had by all.
