Caitlyn’s Catch-Ups: Nationals
The first post of Caitlyn’s Catch-Ups! This post is a continuation of this one.
We got to Memphis on Wednesday evening, and spent the night finishing up the last bits of homework we had to do before break. The next day, we found out that one of the teams we were supposed to play had dropped out of the tournament, so we only had two games to play before finding out if we advanced in the tournament or not—which meant extra resting time between games, which I definitely needed since I had a cold (which was super annoying, might I add). Normally a cancelled game would disappoint me but because of the cold, I was appreciative for the extra time between games!
We played three games total in what was a blur of a tournament. Our first game was against Towson University—a school I had never heard of before Nationals, but it’s in the Baltimore area. We beat them with a score of 2-1, starting the tournament off right! That night we had nothing to do since our second game was cancelled, so the team went to the fields and passed the ball around and watching the other two teams in our pool play against each other. The next morning, we lounged around until it was time for our next game, against UCLA. We won that one too—which broke our previous record of one win at Nationals! This meant that we were first place in our pool and moving on to semi-finals! (Also the first time that we’ve ever gone to semi-finals!) We played an incredible game that night against Penn State, but sadly lost after a tied game, overtime, and penalty kicks. It was probably the best game we’ve ever played, but sadly the win just wasn’t in the cards. I loved spending time with my team though, and we got to spend extra time exploring Memphis and making great memories–which is why I really love Nationals in the first place! (Evidence of all the Nationals and club soccer lovin’ can be found here and here, and also in some of my other blogs.)
