We were supposed to play Michigan Jaguars on Saturday and Central Illinois United on Sunday this past weekend. Because of postponed games and a strange schedule, it is mid-October and we have only played two league games. For reasons I don’t know, the Saturday game was again postponed. Supposedly we will get a forfeit win if the Jaguars can’t reschedule, although I would rather play the game.
On Sunday, we played CIU in Rantoul, Illinois, making it our third game of the season. This was the first time we have played this team as they joined the GA after leaving the ECRL last season when they were known as Central Illinois Eclipse. I was excited to play against a number of girls I have known for many years through playing in the Illinois Youth Soccer Association’s Olympic Development Program. Our team went into the game knowing we had to win because of the slow and rocky start to our season. We started the game really well. I was able to get one good chance on goal on a cross from Riga Kalaba, but the CIU goalkeeper made a great save. We were connecting passes and playing at the level we played at the Girls Academy playoffs in June and things started to click. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t finish and we left Rantoul with a 0-0 draw.
I was happy that I played all 90 minutes and felt really good about how I played. It is nice to see that I can continue to live up to the challenge of putting in 90 full minutes. Our team has started slowly but with a 1-1-1 record, but we seem to be getting back on our feet although we need to stop dropping early season points. Making the GA playoffs is going to be hard this year and some of our rivals are off to good starts already. Hopefully we can bring home three points from Iowa this coming weekend. I am really excited to see what the rest of the season holds for us. In the end, it will all come down to the work we put in at practice, the work we do outside of practice, and the 30 minutes worth of running after practice. Those are the things that are going to set us apart from the other teams this year and I’m committed to doing the work.