I don't blog about sports very often, but I think that it is safe to say that anyone who witnessed that game will never forget it. Decades from now, when a new era of degraded sporting competition causes us purists to yearn for the day when pride really mattered, contemporaries will look at each other and say: "Where were you when Shoe Carnival beat that team with the fluorescent lime jerseys?"
The Shoes had dominated their YMCA soccer competition, playing with a spunky determination that quickly won the hearts of their parents, grandparents, and the occasional passerby. But on this Saturday, the deck would be stacked against them.
A series of family commitments conspired into a perfect storm of player absences, leaving the depleted Shoes left to compete with the minimum of six players plus goalie. A good deal of the team's fire power would not take the field this day, as the Limeys were surely aware of. But little did they know that their bravado would soon be deflated, punctured by the right foot of a Shoe who was different than all the others.
Fast forward to the second half. With no substitutes to spell them, the Shoes stout seven – who history will remember as Quin, Neil, Felix, Noah, Billy, Patch, and Maria - were beginning to fade. The ferocious attack that so many times had sent the opposing goalie running into the corn fields was but a faint breeze that chilled no one. Trailing two goals to one, victory was escaping from their grasp with every passing second. Hope, it seemed, had left to go watch the SHG game.
That is, dear sports fan, until the daughter of a certain blogger decided that failure did not become the Shoes' proud tradition. Her AWOL teammates would not be made to taste defeat from afar, not if she, the only girl on their team, had anything to say about it.
Midway through the third quarter, Maria took an errant pass at midfield and made her way upfield. With a determination not seen since the allies stormed
A renewed vigor raced through the Shoes and their fans. Defeat no longer seemed imminent. But dare they dream of victory? One did.
Just
The scoring was done for the day. Maria and Neil Brown had tallied the winning goals. The Limeys would mount several respectable attacks in the fourth quarter, but their fate had already been determined when they failed to account for the girl who was coming off of her second three-goal game of the season just the week before.
There are those who will say that Maria's performance would have been more impressive had it come in the game's waning minutes. But such last-second, depicted in slow-motion moments have become clichéd in the sporting world and she would never sacrifice true heroics for cheap dramatics. This was, in its essence, the spirit of athletic competition personified, and no
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Ave Maria
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2 comments:
Way to go Maria!
They were talking about that in the stands at the SHG game. The fans all have Maria pegged as the second female kicker in SHG history, but this time more than a novelty item.
Let the recruiting begin!!!
Good job Maria!
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