9/27/2024 Varsity - Bellevue vs Issaquah 9-26-24Bellevue 1-0 Issaquah
32nd min Morgan (Lola) Talking, or writing, about rainy weather is boring. Especially in the PNW. But we all do it. It's a comfort conversation that is universally experienced. And safe. Uncotroversial and uncontrollable. All day the forecast was for rain beginning at 10pm, well past our 7:30 kick-off with 4A powerhouse and 2023 3rd place semi-finalist Issaquah, but an hour before kick-off the forecast shifted and suddenly we faced a 100% prediction of rain from 7:30-9:30pm. Perfectly aligned with game time. It used to be that you could find pithy cliched posters in the hallways of any HR department with sayings like "Hang in there" overlayed across a cute kitten dangling from a tree limb, now such sentiments are the stuff of Instagram memes and tik tok musings. A coaching favorite is "control the controllables:" don't expend any energy on stuff you can't control, and focus on what you can do to make any situation better. For Thursday night in Issaquah, "controlling the controllables" meant ignoring Issaquah's historic girls soccer reputation, and focusing on what we could control, like effort, organization, patience, and poise. So what if it was steadily raining during the entire duration of our game, or that our "injured reserve" section of our bench is significantly larger than the healthy section, we can't control that. And talking about weather, and injuries, is boring. And so we controlled the controllables. From the opening whistle to the final whistle, our team worked hard for each other. We pressed in strategic areas, we won the tackles and headers we needed to win, and when we got our chances in front of the Issaquah goal, we converted one of them to give our team a well-deserved, but gritty, 1-0 victory. The goal was scored in the 32nd minute as Lola did an excellent job anticipating an Issaquah counter-attack and pounced on a pass intended for their left winger. I want players who are "front-foot" defenders, anticipating entry passes and eager to go forward rather than "back-foot" defenders who are reactionary, and Lola is a "front-foot" player. She intercepted the wayward pass and raced into the Issaquah box, sending a tantalizing cross into the middle that Morgan and the Issaquah keeper met simultaneously. The ball jarred loose and our senior super-sub poked the ball home. Jubilation and celebration. 1-0 Bellevue. Soccer can be beautiful. A free-flowing performance art piece of linked passes, coordinated movement, and technical execution. it can also be gritty, determined, and chaotic, like stubbornly challenging for a 50/50 cross and pouncing on scraps in the box. We prefer the former, but will gladly accept the latter. So Morgan and Lola deserve recognition for creating our goal, but winning took everyone on the field. I could write paragraphs on each contribution (but I won't), but I would like to highlight the two JV players who volunteered to stay for an extra two hours, in the rain (ahem), to give our team some substitution-flexibility. With only a few healthy substitutes and facing a physical Issaquah team, coach John and I asked Elina and Tara to join the varsity having already played a half in the JV match (every player can appear in two halves of soccer gametime in a single day, so we saved 40 minutes of potential play for each player for the varsity contest). It was an insurance policy just in case we suffered any more injury setbacks. So although they didn't get to help us on the field on Thursday, their contribution was another one of the "controllables" that help the team. No, we can't control injuries, but we can plan appropriately to mitigate the impact in case they happen. Huge thank you to Elina and Tara for being willing, and ready, to help us out. We are now 5 weeks into our season, and after two challenging games against Skyline and Issauqah, our girls have earned a Friday rest. No practice. We'll return to action next week with another tough slate of games against 2023 4A State finalist Woodinville at home on Tuesday, and current Kingco league leader Mt. Si away on Thursday. We have four weeks left in our regular season. Yes, just four weeks (then hopefully another four weeks of post-season). The first RPI calculation of the season was published this week, and Bellevue is #7 in the 3A rankings. This is an entertaining list, but meaningless at the mid-point of the season. There is so much soccer left to be played. And although a good RPI ranking is helpful when the state tournament is seeded, I'll remind everyone that the 3A defending champion Roosevelt was listed as the #22 RPI team at the end of last season, but it's their name etched into the state championship trophy. In the end, rankings don't matter, results do. See you next week. Enjoy a restful weekend...and the autumn weather. Comments are closed.
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