Soccer over

Well, the spring soccer season concluded over the weekend with the state tournament in Rapid City. We had to endure some challenges, moving game times, missing players, sick players, and all kinds of other things that happened through the week.

We came out missing two of our oldest players in the first game and got beat by Spearfish 4-1. We played in the under 19 classic division, which was the more challenging of the two under 19 divisions. However, in our first game, we didn't have anyone much over 17, and had some 7th graders starting against a team that had one player under 17, and the rest were much older. It was somewhat frustrating also only have two substitutes to use, so there wasn't much in the way of options for changing things. We got a nice break though, and the players that were missing came out and arrived in time for the second game in the evening. The downfall in that was the rain pouring down as the match got underway. It poured for several minutes, and eventually let up, but enough to make everyone throughly soaked. We were able to come out with a win though 3-2 over Rapid City. I was happy with the play, and very happy that we didn't go home with no wins.

So, we got up on Saturday, and the weather was bad. 40 degrees and rain/sleet/snow. The only thing that kept it from snow was that it wasn't white. It was fairly miserable conditions, and we didn't play well our first game and were beaten 5-2. Watertown was a team that I thought we should play even with, and our defense didn't play too well, and the offense blew way many chances. So, we needed a win over our spring nemesis Yankton to go home even on the weekend. Now as they do on Sportscenter, lets flash back to May 2nd and the first meeting of these two teams when there was an altercation with the players and the referee and the James Valley coach that resulted in two ejections. Yankton won the game 4-3. Then, the second meeting of the two teams in Yankton on May 30 when Yankton soundly defeated James Valley 6-3 in a game that tended to be chippy and lippy. So, back to present, State tournament matchup, and James Valley gets on the board in the first 10 minutes 1-0. Yankton came back 5 minutes later to even things at 1-1, and just before half, James Valley scored again and would not look back scoring 4 times in the second half to win 6-2. It was revenge in the sweetest form, beating the opponent that owned you during the year, and doing it in emphatic fashion. And, watching the guys hardly being able to walk off the field because they'd played their hearts out was a good feeling, and a great end to the season. Now, back to the field for me to resume being a referee. For the foreseeable future, all my soccer games will be watched for fun, or in my referee gear.