Three Kids and a Dog: Austen Heads to Orlando/St. Louis for Soccer

The past two weekends, I've been out of town for soccer with Austen. First, we headed to Orlando to watch him compete in his National League qualifiers for the PRO League. If they won their first two games in Orlando, they would head to Tampa the end of February to compete for a bid to the National League finals in July.

First game was a routing. Austen gets the assist on the first goal and then they just continue to pummel the other team. Most boring game I've watched in a long time. Final result was 7-0 with Austen sitting most of the second half (resting for the next day's game) once they opened up on their opponents.

U17 Galaxy Boys

Second game was going to be tougher although I think the boys underestimated this New Jersey team. The opposition came out having to win after a tough loss the day before. We came out thinking we could take them since they got beat 0-4. We were slow to get to the ball. The heat didn't help either. Bad passes and too much dribbling continued to plague this team. We go up 1-0 after a near post shot by Austen. No idea where he's finding the energy to get stronger as the match goes on since the heat is his kryptonite and he's playing the full game. We go into halftime with a 1-0 lead but the other teams draws a foul outside the box and puts one in. We are well into the second half now and Austen continues to get stronger even though I can tell he's dying after playing the entire game thus far and having to run a lot in the midfield. No idea where he's getting the energy but he dribbles through traffic and gets taken down outside the box. He puts his own one away on a direct kick and we are up 2-1. We just need to hang on which is the story of this team. Hang on. But they never do.

Austen goes down with a shooting pain in his leg and (probably exhaustion at the 10 minute mark). He gets subbed out. They hang on for 9 more minutes and give up a corner in the last minute which leads to a goal. We are headed to PKs. After being worked on by the trainer, Austen is up and back on the field for PKs. He makes his but we can't stop the other team either and when we miss one, it's over. We lose in PKs on a last second goal. Their chances at National League PRO are gone and they won't be heading to Tampa. Heartbreaking for this team that has so much talent but who can't defend a restart to save their lives.

They play out the third game. Austen can barely walk as he has a blister the size of Texas on his foot and they don't have trainers there at the start of the game to tape him up. Doesn't much matter anymore. He plays minimal the third game and the subs start us out. They finally crack open the other team and we win 5-2.

The boys are a close bunch. They give each other shit for fouls and missing open goals. They certainly hold each other accountable but not in a rude way either. I enjoy driving them to their team activity and listening to them discuss the game in the backseat.

We head back to Chicago and that's when Austen starts getting emails and texts about that second game from college coaches. So crazy that that's what opened up the recruitment process for him. He's been emailing coaches but now it's the coaches directly reaching out to him asking to speak with him and come to their schools. And, it's all because of the effort in that second game. Not an easy opponent, but also not an easy game in the heat and somehow he rose to the occasion and left everything he had on the field. The worry was that he wouldn't be able to take a PK in the shoot out because he wasn't on the field at the end of the game (but we found out he could) although we needed to be sure he could physically take one too (he somehow was up and ready to go to put away a pretty PK). And, he was the player when his teammate (and fellow co captain) missed to be the one right there comforting him and speaking words of encouragement. This is exactly how he needs to perform as a player and a teammate/co captain if he's going to play at the collegiate level and he did. The hard games are when players need to step up and he certainly did show up then and the following weekend.

We returned from Orlando and headed to St. Louis to play 2 more league games against two teams that also already qualified for the PRO League. In the first game, our defensive midfielder goes down in the first 10 minutes with a high ankle sprain and Austen must now drop and fill this role to help his team (especially with one of our center backs already out for that game). He does but not before assisting the first goal of the game. He plays a great #6, helping his team secure a 4-0 victory (against a team that qualified for Tampa but who we are clearly better than).

Teammates and Friends

The next day, they have their center back return but the defensive midfielder is still out so Austen must play the #6. This means he can't help as much to ignite the offense. After a scoreless half, the coach puts him back in his original position. He responds within the first 10 minutes by assisting the first goal to put us up 1-0. We can't hold on though. They counter with a goal off a corner (go figure - we really need to figure out those restarts!) and Austen must drop back to play the #6 again. This is the team that got 3rd in Nationals last year and we are thinking we should beat them but at this point we'll take a tie. Last two minutes of the game and we take someone down in the box and they covert the PK. We lose 1-2.

These boys seriously have to be the unluckiest bunch of kids. I've rarely seen things go their way. I guess Champions are made when the chips are stacked against you. They are learning how to fail and get better. Lots of time to still get to Nationals. Keep working boys - as your coach said, the journey may be longer but the victory will mean so much more once you get there!