Soccer in AZ

Austen and I ventured to Arizona almost two weekends ago for him to play the second half of his national league games. They played the first half of the league games in Florida at the beginning of December and came away from those contests with a win and two ties. 

This time, they secured two wins and a tie. Still undefeated but with lots of ties on the table, they will have to beat a tough Iowa team in an upcoming local match to secure an automatic bid to Nationals in Florida in July. 

Celebrating after Austen Scores (he's in middle)

With a new coach (Austen's old Wizard coach) at the helm and lots of changes, I think this team has a lot of potential to get that automatic bid to Nationals, and they have more time now to figure out which players are going to get them there (there are 28 players on our Elite Team roster - way too many!). 

The first two games in AZ were uneventful. The first was a forfeit by a team who had withdrawn from the PRO league (which is virtually unheard of but they were getting killed). So our team had a friendly scrimmage against a team from New Jersey that the league had set up. And what a joke that was. The boys killed them 9-0 and that was with having them add another player on the field and offering them our starting goalie. Austen scores two goals in that game but I don't even count those. 

Second game has the boys playing a Utah team. They handle them easily with a 5-0 shutout. Austen takes a PK for his teammate (scores) and contributes an assist. For some reason they have him playing more defensively in this game as a double 6 so he doesn't see very much action at the top. 

The last game they play the first place team. Austen starts out in the double 6 spot again. Not sure why they are playing so defensively. He does manage to work his way up through the midfield and into the box and gets launched by another player after he passes the ball which results in him writhing in pain on the sidewalk behind the goal for a few minutes. He eventually gets up and limps over to the PK spot to take the PK which results from the foul. He makes it and they are up 1-0. His team scores another beautiful goal in the second half and really are the better team that day at least during the first 75 minutes. But, with 15 minutes left, they panic. They give up a PK. Now it's 2-1. Then they give up a corner which results in another goal and they just couldn't hang on. 2-2 final. 

So close but yet not enough to close the deal. I think another parent said it best, this is the time to learn that you can't give away games like that instead of during a National Championship. They saw an older team in their club do that this summer during their National Championship final game, and I'm sure those kids will remember that kind of heartbreak forever. 

In between all of the soccer games, there were also team walks, team dinners and team bonding at the Escape Room as well as presentations on healthy eating, mandatory curfews and rest times, and game study sessions too. 

The weather was cool. The airport rental car situation sucked (too far to return a rental car - Turo only in the future when I have to rent from Sky Harbor). The flight home was uneventful (after just making it due to a delayed game and a very far drive to the rental car return line).  But looking forward to seeing these boys develop and how far they can go! Austen also got permission to finally order his Captain's band as one of two Captains for this team after two and 1/2 years of serving in this role. He can't wait to wear it next time he plays. 

Escape Room

2007 Galaxy Elite

Second goal celebration (#48 is Austen)

First night sustenance