Youngest Daughter's team played in the divisional playoffs this weekend. They made it to the finals and they faced Raymond. The beat them in the regular season when both teams had been undefeated up to that point. Raymond beat them at the Harvest Cup Tournament. This match was for all the marbles. Raymond came to the field sure that they were going to win, but somebody forget to tell our girls.
Raymond plays rough and as they fell behind by the single goal it got worse. At one point one of their players deliberately ran into the goalie well after the play was over. It was so obvious that the ref gave the girl a yellow card (warning). I've never, ever, seen a yellow card at their age level of play. They really aren't even all that common at the high school level so that tells you how blatent the hit was by that girl.
The same girl lined up and tripped another of our goals and our coach told her that it "wasn't right" when she went out on the field to help our player who'd hit the grand pretty hard. After the game that girl's father ran across the field to our coaches and swore at them, gave them the finger, and tried to pick a fight.
On our side of the field the parents were giving us the finger as we cheered our girls win.
Oldest Daughter tells me that they are the same way at the high school level (she manages our high school boys varsity soccer team). She says they play dirty to start and then it goes downhill from there if they start to lose.
I've heard parents scream at their little girls about the tiniest of mistakes on the field. Give me a break! It isn't like scholarships or pro contracts rested on who wins the Division II championship for U12 girls.
The poor behavior of the kids, coaches, and parents made this victory very sweet.
Posted by bbarton at November 3, 2003 02:57 PM