Bellevue vs Juanita 9-16-21

BHS 2-0 Juanita
'10 Alex (Halle)
'41 Bekah (Alex)
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"Don't forget to be awesome" -John & Hank Green
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"Brave and joyful." Those were my last words to the team before they took the field on Thursday evening to begin our 2021 Kingco league season. I was referring to the spirit I hoped we would bring to game: a combination of grit and style, toughness and patience, effort and fun. I was also talking about my socks. For Christmas last year, my daughter enrolled me in an "Awesome socks club." It's a monthly delivery of unique socks, set up by John & Hank Green with all proceeds going to charity. Some of you might know the Green brothers from John's best-selling novels like "The Fault in our Stars" or Hank's tik tok fame, or their popular Crash Course youtube videos (great for AP cramming). One of the Green brothers' mottos is "Don't forget to be awesome." So I wore my awesome socks to the game last night, showed the girls my dorky dad socks at pre-game (the socks really are ridiculous), and told them to be brave and joyful. Be awesome.  
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And they were.
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The final score was 2-0, which is job done, but I was even more pleased with our overall quality. The stats support our good play: shot/corners 22/5 vs. 6/0, and we dictated the tempo throughout. For me, this was a good test of how this team would respond to our result on Tuesday, in which we played well, but still didn't get a result. Momentum is a real thing in sports, and how a team responds to a loss is important. Some teams tailspin, and other teams respond with renewed focus and determination. And Juanita is a very well-coached and organized team, with dangerous players throughout their line-up. But the Ravens got us on a very good night, and there is no better example of this than our first goal. Ten minutes into the game, Hinana applied the pressure, chasing back to win the ball at midfield before sliding iwide to Emily. Emily trapped and passed in two-quick touches, advancing the ball upfield to Alex who was checking back into space from striker. Alex one-touched back to Halle and then turned and sprinted into the space she just left, Halle paused for the briefest moment before sending her own one-touch perfect weighted pass back to Alex, freeing her to run unmarked at the Raven's goalkeeper. Alex finished with style and we were leading 1-0. I love everything about this goal: the gritty track-back defense, the quick and decisive combination-passing and fluid movement, and the composed finish. 
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We continued to play flowing soccer and were unlucky to not add to the scoreline during the first half. But we didn't have to wait long in the second half to earn our winning margin...Alex won the ball (from Juanita's kick-off) on the left wing, dribbled aggressively upfield and slid a perfect cross to Bekah to finish from 6 yards out. Less than 20 seconds into the half. The movement by both Nova & Bekah made this possible. Nova (playing striker at the time), checked her run for a cut-back cross, which pinned the Juanita CB, and this allowed Bekah to charge into the space behind the CB from the right wing for an easy finish. Balanced movement is critical for good counter-attacking. Being aware of your teammates and making complimentary runs is the difference between a tap-in goal versus an overly congested box that makes scoring more difficult. Nova's name won't show up on the scoresheet, but her clever check-back run directly influenced our goal.  
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The remainder of the second half wasn't as flowing as the first, but still very very good overall.  We comfortably saw out the game, with the only exception being a dangerous free-kick on the edge of our box very late in the game. But we are lucky to have one of the best goalkeepers in the state on our team, and Ashley's save at full stretch secured our shutout and made the last few minutes significantly easier to manage.  
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Next week we have two home games against Liberty and Kingco newcomers Hazen. Two more opportunities for awesomeness. I'll be wearing joyful socks. 
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