Scott's World: Turkey Trot Soccer Tournament 2011

Last year, Jen E invited me to play in the Turkey Trot Tournament. And while we lost all our games, I had a lot of fun playing with different people and against different players. It was a way to test myself against other players. Alot has changed since that tournament. And I think I have improved immensely, as we have won 2 titles and got to the championship games 2 other times.
This year was a new team. I didn't play with most of these people. Different people mean we need to get familiar with each other. They also have to used to my style of play and how I communicate.

Round Robin, Game 1: we won this game 2-1. The one goal hit my hand and rolled in. which frustrated me. I had the save but rolled away. We were up 2-0 at the time too. When we saw the point system, the shutout would have given us an extra point. I did make a great save. A shot hit the defender and went up and over. I reached up and knocked it away last second to preserve the 1 goal lead.

After the game, we looked at the standings. This was when we found the point system:

Win = 6 points
Tie = 3
Loss = 0
Point for every Goal Up; up to 4 = +1 (so for Game 1, we were up 1, so 1 extra point)
Shutout = +1 point
MAX Points per game is 11.

At this point we figured out how the tournament was shaped. Two sets of tournament brackets, A Group (the competitive group) and B Group (the recreation group). Each group had 2 divisions, White and blue. After you play the teams in your group, the 3rd place teams on both divisions play each other. Then the 1st place white vs 2nd place blue, and 1st place blue vs 2nd place white. In case the points were tied, the tie breakers were Wins, Head to Head, goal differential, shootout.

So I was important to get that shutout. I think after we found that out the defense stepped up more and I pushed myself further to keep that shutout. in tact.

Round Robin, Game 2: we played a team that was fairly new. We dominated this game 4-0; with me recording my first shutout of the tournament. Funny incident occurred; the other team's girls keep putting their arms out. Beth warned them, that's not how you play and if you keep doing it, your gonna get hurt. The other girl got all pissed off. Then the other girl goes, "well we don't play soccer we play hockey. we don't know the rules here." Beth said something like "Well when we're over there, we'll play by hockey rules. but when you're here you better play by soccer rules." Umm duh.

And with that win, we CLINCHED Top seed in the division. Though we didn't know it for about 15 minutes. Turns out that Group A, every team ended up with 1 win. Each game had a score of 2-1. So all 3 teams were even in a 3-way tie. I guess they had to draw straws to see which team moved on and one team got "the shaft"

After that was resolved the Group A 3rd place teams played. Now it's on to our game.

Semi-Finals: We already lost a guy because he didn't realize the tournament would go out so late, but then Albert got hurt and couldn't play the 2nd half of the game. the team was down to 3 guys, which means no Male-for-male subs. Fortunately we were able to pull out a 3-0 win (my 2nd shutout) . But now the guys knew they had to play a full 35 minutes in the finals.

Finals: The team we beat in the first game made it to the finals as well. But this time we had major adversity with only 3 guys. The guys played their hearts out. The game was back and forth, 0-0 for 20 minutes. Then a pass to Beth who passed to Jen, that got past a diving goalie. Jen went for the ball and the goalie tripped her, which led to the penalty shot. Jonah shot it in for the 1-0 lead. 1-0 lead with about 9 minutes left. The guys were tired. they were all walking around. Nelson came off and needed a break as he had tweaked his hamstring before the tournament. But he came back out with 5 minutes left. Soon after that Jonah blasted another shot in to the net to take a 2-0 lead. That sealed the deal. Time ran down and we had won 2-0. (by the way, my 3rd shutout of the tournament)

There's no way I can take credit for the 3 shutouts. I had some great saves, but the shots were far and few between. My defense in front of me played great. Dawn, Albert, Fernando, Diego, and Nelson all played out of their minds and blocked and limited alot of scoring chances. Our offense controlled the game offensively and really limited the other teams' possession. The scorebook may say I had 3 shutouts, but it's the field players that really controlled the game and gave me those 3 shutouts.