Fort Lowell Shootout

Whitney is lucky #13 again.

Chris presenting Whitney with her medal.

2010 AYSO Region 206 U12G Travel Team - Almost Angels

Back row, left to right: Coach Todd, Whitney, Natalie, Darby, Hannah, Cierra, Patience, Emilie, Maggie, Coach Brice

Front row, left to right: Reilly, Piper, Tori, Kayla

Whitney has been playing soccer on the military bases where we lived since she was 3 years old. These teams are always coed and pretty low key. This year Whitney played in an AYSO girls league (they don't have any coed leagues). At the end of the year they select the twelve best girls from the league to play on a team and Whitney was asked to be on the region's spring select team. This past weekend they played their first tournament here in Tucson called the Ft. Lowell Shootout. They have teams come from all over Arizona and the rest of the western United States. A lot of the teams are club teams which play together year round giving them a big advantage against the AYSO teams which haven't played together before.

They played two games on Saturday and did really well. They tied their first game 1-1 against a club team. The second game they won 1-0 and after the game we found out that they would be playing in the semi-finals the following morning. Whitney has been asked to play defense and she did incredible. During the semi-final they didn't allow the other team a single shot and won 5-0. For the championship game they played a club team. At the end of the championship it was tied 1-1 so it went to penalty kicks. Each team was given 5 penalty kicks. Talk about nerve racking but our Almost Angels ended up winning the Championship! Chris was a little hoarse after all his cheering.

I am also learning more about soccer. I did not realize it was considered a contact sport. Coach Todd has been encouraging Whitney to be aggressive and brutal. They scrimmaged the boys U12 team and Whitney knocked one of their players down so hard he rolled across the ground. Chris and her coaches were really very pleased with this development. In the second game of the tournament Whitney unfairly received a yellow card when the ref called a bad call. She was pretty upset and fighting tears. That is all part of playing the game though.