I admit to being a bit of a sports fanatic, and understand most of the ones I follow. I love watching my two granddaughters who are soccer keepers, but I cannot for the life of me figure out all the rules to this game. I thought baseball had some crazy rules like the dropped third strike and football with loss of coin toss for not getting players on the field in time, but soccer tops it in my opinion with the goalkeepers having to stop best of five penalty kicks after a double overtime to determine a victory.
The 13-year-old girls FC Alliance 2010 GRL soccer team has a lot of experience with winning this season in overtime games. This team had three double overtime games, qualifying for and winning the TN State Championship both in double overtime games that ended in a PK (penalty kick) shootout. Winning the state championship qualified the girls to play in the regional tournament in Greenville, South Carolina. These girls played an extraordinary week of soccer last week, winning their way to the regional championship game on Sunday, again playing in a double overtime game for a third time. This time, the score did not go their way, losing 2-3 before they got to the penalty shoot out. However, their accomplishments throughout the week earned them a spot to compete in the nationals in Wichita, Kansas, in July.
Just a bit of history was made this past week; it’s been almost 15 years since a U13 team went to nationals. The last time occurred in 2009.
As we heard Coach Kable Nunnally say so many times, “Let’s go!” Now, it’s on to Kansas. Follow the team on Facebook at FC Alliance Team or their hashtag #letsgo
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