AuburnChick's Adventures

This morning when I got up and saw myself in the mirror, a very sunburned face was staring back at me.

Three days in the sun will do that to a person.

Now, now.  Don’t go wagging your finger at me.  I know I should have put on sunscreen, but I HATE the feeling of the stuff on my face.

Friday, after touring the college, we headed over to Melbourne, where Chicky’s team would be playing its first game.  I’m so glad I didn’t know at the time, but if they lost, they were out of the state playoffs.

I donned a pair of longer “mom” blue-jean shorts and headed out to watch, camera in hand.  The game was tight, both teams equally matched.  I could feel my legs burning, literally, as my stomach began churning with nervousness.  The team wound up coming on top, 1-0!

It would play on Sunday; whereas, the other team was sent home.

Sunday, my nervousness was present…ten-fold, as was the sunburn.  I was smart that morning and purchased sunscreen, which I applied liberally to my legs.  The funny thing was that I was wearing a pair of shorter “non-mom” shorts (as Chicky commented), so you could see a section of white, where the sun had not touched my skin the day before.  Below the line were my red legs.  Kind of embarrassing, but ok.  Whatever.  I sprayed down my arms, legs, and neck and began taking pictures as soon as the first whistle blew.

Once again, it was a tight game.  Our girls came out playing a very sloppy game. Even Chicky wasn’t quite “on,” much to our concern.  I don’t know if it was nerves or the heat.  The other team scored first, looking like the defending state champions that they were.

If the other team wound up on top at the end, they would certainly deserve it.

Now, I don’t know what happened during halftime, but when the ref blew the whistle for the second half to begin, our girls came out like nobody’s business.  You could tell…they had decided to play some soccer.

And that’s what the girls did.  They started playing like a team, patiently passing to each other and finally, finally, finally scoring a goal!!  It was beautiful!!!  The parents cheered loudly and unashamedly.

But, there was still a lot of game to play.

Time for the water break.  The game was tied.  We really didn’t want the game to go into overtime.  We had done that last year…on the same field…two games in a row.  Do you remember my posts about it?

Yeah…not something we were looking forward to.

Right after the water break, one of our girls knocked in a bullet of a goal!  We were jumping up and down like crazy fools.  I had a hard time taking pictures because I wanted to watch the game.

We still had 20 minutes to play, though!  Still lots of game time.

And then, with about six or seven minutes left, one of our girls shot a goal that should not have, under ordinary circumstances, gone into the net.

But it did.

And once again, the parents went ballistic.  You could have heard us holler from the West coast!

We counted down the minutes until the final whistle blew.

The game was over, and Chicky’s team is now headed to the Final Four.

We made the long, seven-hour drive home, pulling into the driveway around 10:15pm.  We headed straight to bed and woke up to begin a brand-new week…all of us sporting sunburned faces that told on us.

It’s a story I’m proud to share.

Filed under: soccer | Tagged: final four, soccer |