Corporate Challenge Soccer
So today’s Wednesday. This means that the pool play portion of Corporate Challenge Soccer has ended! So, how did Selling Source fare?
Actually, I’m quite proud of the team. We had issues getting enough women on the team, so we weren’t even sure if we’d be able to play. We ended up actually having 5 women on the roster, but one of the ladies, Celeste, had just given birth, so there was no way she’d be able to play.
Complicating matters, another lady, Emerald, would be unable to play the first two of the three pool-play matches because she would be attending a wedding that evening. So we’d have three women for the first two games and four for the third… Well, not so fast. Initially it seemed like another woman, Melissa, would be unable to play the third game of pool play and any potential matches in the playoffs. We got that cleared up so she’d be able to play, however.
Although this is getting ahead of myself a bit, that wasn’t the end of it. Another of our ladies, Adrienne, wasn’t able to make the third game because something came up at the last moment, so we played all three pool play games with three women. Since we were playing 6v6 and were required to keep three women on the field at all times, our ladies had to play the entire game without a sub… Wow.
So what about the men? No issues, really. We had 6 guys and all 6 made each game. So obviously, the men did the heavy lifting on running up and down the field, but the women really, really contributed.
Now on to the results! We dropped our first game to AAA to the tune of 6-2. It wasn’t as bad a loss as the score suggests really. We were still in the mode of learning how we all played and getting people in the right positions on the field.
The second game we won 6-4 over Nevada Cancer Institute. We felt really good about this win and we gelled pretty well, I thought. Unfortunately, we were eliminated from the playoffs after our second game, as AAA defeated Konami and had a 2-0 record. They held the tiebreakers over both us and Konami because they beat us both, and Konami defeated Nevada Cancer Institute, so we had no way to get ahead of AAA in the standings.
Our final game was against Konami and we took it, 4-3. So we ended with a 2-1 pool play record and a -1 goal differential. Not bad!
I’d like to give shoutouts to all of our players:
- Melissa – She played keeper the second and third matches and had some great saves. We wouldn’t have won without her back there!
- Adrienne – Adrienne’s ankle was hurting after the first game but she toughed out the second game and totally mixed it up on offense and defense, getting in the way and breaking up tons of plays.
- Emerald – She was only able to make the third game, but she made it count with great aggressive play that helped us maintain possession of the ball and pressure the other team.
- Beth – Beth, like Melissa, played all minutes of all games and was instrumental in defending the opposing women. She made a bunch of great plays and had several bang-up passes.
- Matt – Matt was always running to the ball and always applying offensive and defensive pressure. His high motor always kept the rest of us giving it our all.
- Eric – Eric, despite the final score, made several great saves in our first game as keeper. Afterwards, he was a great all-around player on the field filling whatever position was necessary on the field.
- Ray – Ray had some great footwork and offensive work to setup scores for us. He wouldn’t back down from any challenge and made sure to give it his all on the field every time.
- Alec – Our resident Brit, Alec played a variety of roles on the team and always came in to assist on defending against more skilled players. His great ball handling and vision of the field opened up many good scoring opportunities.
- Demin – Demin was by far our scoring machine. He had 8 of our 12 goals, I think. He also had really great ball handling skills and was able to slice his way through opposing defenses.
- Me – Um… I had an assist on a Matt Piper goal once.
The ladies on the team were troopers for sure, and despite playing a lot of time, they still made plays in all three games the whole match. I’m really proud of this team considered the circumstances, and it being our first year for Corporate Challenge Soccer. I hope to be able to play with as many of them as possible in the future.
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