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St. Meinrad Soccer Tournament (updated!)
Over this weekend I have had a
fantastic time at the St. Meinrad soccer tournament. We had 17 guys from Bruté who
had been practicing for the last month or two a few times each week. To be quite honest, I enjoyed the practicing
almost as much as the tournament itself.
We usually worked on some particular skill (shooting, dribbling,
settling, evading defense, defending, etc.) each practice and then had a 30
minute scrimmage to end the practice – lots of fun! Anyway, on Wednesday we went through some
last-minute rules, planned the logistics, handed out the uniforms. We had our final practice on Thursday, during
which we had everybody there at once (for the only time, I think) and we worked
on some more large-scale drills for the offence and defense.
On Friday we left around 3 PM
after everybody had finished their classes and gotten their stuff packed
up. The car I was in was completely full
with 5 guys but we had a fun time anyway.
You know, kept the music pumping, took a nap, laughed at some jokes, and
enjoyed the scenery (the trees have just started to change so the drive was very pretty). Due to the time zone change, we got to St.
Meinrad around 5 PM after a 3 hour drive.
As last year, we got to stay in the newly renovated Bede Hall, which is
furnished about as nicely as your typical hotel. My room had a great view directly above the
soccer fields.
We threw our stuff in our rooms
and then wondered down to the dining room, where we enjoyed some fish/potato
bake, salad, and other good food. I
forget what else we did that evening, but the only thing that I remember was
that I got to bed early and managed to squeeze in about 9 hours of sleep before
7 AM Mass the next morning.
Thankfully, Bruté didn’t have the wolf down breakfast like the teams from Sacred Heart and Mount St. Mary’s, who had the first game at 9:00. The tournament last year was between Bruté and Meinrad (where we lost in the penalty kicks at the end). Thus, it was with great expectations we took the field at 10:30 against Meinrad. The game started fast, both teams were attacking and defending well, but Bruté scored first. We all were elated (and further determined to win)! However, Meinrad came back to score, tying the game after about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, despite playing out the rest of the game really well, Meinrad scored two more unanswered goals and the game ended 1-3.
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| Meinrad is beautiful! |
Thankfully, Bruté didn’t have the wolf down breakfast like the teams from Sacred Heart and Mount St. Mary’s, who had the first game at 9:00. The tournament last year was between Bruté and Meinrad (where we lost in the penalty kicks at the end). Thus, it was with great expectations we took the field at 10:30 against Meinrad. The game started fast, both teams were attacking and defending well, but Bruté scored first. We all were elated (and further determined to win)! However, Meinrad came back to score, tying the game after about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, despite playing out the rest of the game really well, Meinrad scored two more unanswered goals and the game ended 1-3.
We were bummed at the loss, but
were determined to win the next game against Sacred Heart. Unfortunately, we were playing back-to-back
games, unlike Sacred Heart, who had been able to rest for the last hour and a
half, and we also underestimated the quality of the team we were up against. They scored two (or was it one?) quick goal(s)
on us, before we got one (to our great excitement), but the game quickly went
downhill from there. We were tired,
physically and mentally, and stopped playing as we had in the first game. That combined with some unlucky bobbles near
the goal led to their getting several more goals before the game ended. We were all pretty frustrated with playing
that poorly because we knew that we had the skill, just not the energy or
organization, but that’s part of the game too, and Sacred Heart had quite a
good team.
A side note: During all of our
games I was primarily on defense. This
game, as it happened, I was for the most part on a guy called Ryan, who must
have been Sacred Heart’s striker or maybe some sort of offensive midfielder. Anyway, he despite his grumblings at my being
too fast, he managed to score a goal when the ball got loose in the box and he
was in the perfect spot to tap it in. I
had saved a few other balls like that in the other games (one that I was quite
proud of was when our goalie dropped the ball in front of two guys from Meinrad
and I managed to snag it from a few feet in front of the goal and clear it),
but this one was literally rolling into the goal and all Ryan did was speed its
progress – Usain Bolt couldn't have stopped it and neither did I… Anyway, finishing off this story, during the
final fifteen minutes of the game Sacred Heart was on the attack and I was in
the act of clearing the ball (ie: kicking it quickly) when Ryan managed to
stick a leg or knee or something into my thigh – it was certainly not
intentional, and I would have expected him to be that aggressive – but either
way it hurt really, really bad. I went
down, gave a few good yells (it hurt!) and then jumped backed up, “yeah, I’m fine”. Apparently, both teams thought I was dying or
something, so they got a laugh at my quick “recovery”. Either way, my thigh was really hurting and I
was limping a bit (impairing my ability to defend), so I sat out for a few
minutes before re-taking the field.
Yeah, it hurt, but I mean we were down 4-1 or something, and I couldn't stay out the rest of the game.
Anyway, I came back in as a
midfielder – good idea, I can’t run, so I’ll choose a position that requires
more running… J Nevertheless, I did have one more pretty good
moment. I snagged the ball deep in our
half and sped down the field, evading a few of Sacred Heart’s midfielders and
defenders before, losing the ball on a bad touch well down the field. It has to be my favorite thing to do in
soccer – carrying the ball down the field – and I didn’t get too many chances
to do it on defense, so despite the partial loss of my leg I went for it either
way. Regaining my humility, like always
I took one too many touches and didn’t get the pass off before somebody cut me
off (and I lost the ball). It was
actually kind of funny, as I sprinted by my bench all the guys cheered, and
then when I lost the ball they yelled for me to run back down the field and
recover the ball. Well, at this point I
was tired, in pain, and just didn't have the energy to blast back down the
field chasing the ball, so I let our mid-fielders and defense take care of
it. Sorry to the guys who were cheering for me to run after it; I didn't have much left.
Alright, so that game ended in
another defeat, this time 5-1 or something.
We weren't happy, not only were we knocked out of the championship game
the next day, we knew that we hadn't played very well, and though we had played
hard, we hadn't played very cohesively and so had lost the game. Thankfully, we now had a few hours before our
last game, so we hobbled up the hill and got some lunch before crashing in our
rooms for a few hours. I know a few guys
took naps, but I was trying to avoid stiffening up, so I stayed up and worked
on a little bit of philosophy (I’m starting to hit that point where I really
need to start getting somewhere on the papers due at the end of the semester –
40 pages, 40 days to go). I also worked
on a little blog-writing, along with the occasional glance out of the windows
to check how the game was going. Meinrad
played two games against Mount St. Mary’s and then Sacred Heart, tying the
first and losing the second.
We were a bit scared then when
we took the field against Mount St. Mary’s at 4:30. They had (unexpectedly, to us) tied Meinrad,
and it wasn't looking to be an easy match up.
Nevertheless, we took the field determined to win at least one
game. Thankfully, we did. Despite my thigh really not liking the walk
down the hill, it held up really well during the game and I pushed through the
pain to hold down the left defense. I
figured that the rest of the guys were tired (and if you haven’t figured out,
my humility could use a little work), so I played the entire game. Actually, I was a lot less tired than I
thought I would be. Anyway, the Mount
put up a good battle, I was especially scared when a certain guy named Jarred
switched from defense to attack (he was a pillar of the Bruté team last year
before graduation and moving on to Mount St. Mary’s), but we kept them to one
goal and scored three during the duration of the game, thus winning our last game. Unfortunately, we were still eliminated from
the tournament, but I know that everybody was pretty happy that we got that
win. We played better, passed the ball
well, and our defense held up really well (our goalie saved a few goals
too). I had a few more breakaways when I could get the chance. The first one, I shot from pretty far out (thus, not scoring) because I was on
defense and didn’t want to get too far up field. The second was near the end of the game, when we were pretty much guaranteed a win, and I switched with another guy to become offensive midfielder. I successfully evaded their midfielders and was right up with their defense, when I decided to cross it rather than shoot. Unfortunately, the other guy wasn't very open and simultaneously my legs started cramping and seizing (they were pretty tired), so we didn't get anything there.
After that game we were all
pretty tired (make that absolutely exhausted).
I know for at least myself, every fiber of my body was aching – thighs,
definitely – knees, yep, shoulders, uh-huh (why, I have no idea) – you get the
picture, I was hurting. Nevertheless, we
limped up the hill, took a quick shower (it felt fantastic!), said evening
prayer, and then went down to the unstable for some delicious pizza and hanging
out with all the guys. Despite our
competition on the field, all that was forgotten, and we had an absolutely
wonderful evening. How can you possibly
beat a pizza buffet, watching the world series, jamming to a live band, and
hanging out with some of the best guys ever? (you can’t!)
After an hour or two of that, I
spent an hour more hanging out with a smaller group of guys (a mix of current
and previous Bruté guys), checked out some of their rooms, laughed to some
uproariously funny jokes, and wondered around Meinrad a little bit. It was a fun evening, but when I got back to
my room around 10 I was beat. Of course,
there was another “party” (in the sense of a few guys sitting around) happening
in the room watching the world series, and of course, I stayed up to watch the
end (good game, ended with a weird obstruction call, so that was crazy). Anyway, I finally got to bed around 11 and
slept soundly till around 8 the next morning.
I felt great when I woke up, but then hopped out of bed to find that my
legs were destroyed. Obviously, the one
thigh hurt, but also they just were legitimately tired. Really interesting feeling!
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| Meinrad is in black and Sacred Heart is in red, championship match - this feature is just too cool! |
We hobbled back up the hill, and I was pretty much in the middle of a complaint about how my legs were hurting when Daniel decided to race me to the top. He took off while calling out “race you to the top!”, and of course, I wasn’t just going to stand there, so off I went. We were probably 2/3’s of the way up when he started running, so it wasn’t the entire hill, but it still hurt to sprint up that hill. It was a close finish, maybe a tie, maybe he had a slight lead, either way my legs now hurt even worse than before… (Thanks Daniel! J).
I quickly packed up my stuff,
got dressed up for Mass, and walked down to the chapel by a bit before 10
AM. The homily, given by Fr. Dennis, which he will probably post on
his blog eventually, was really, really good. He talked about how, despite our
false-humility, and often not following God’s plan for our life, our Church,
and everything else, God still wants and loves us.
After Mass, we had a quick (but
delicious) breakfast, finished packing our stuff, had some last laughs with the
guys there, and took off around 1PM. Adam
was our driver again (thanks man!), and we had another fun trip (if not more
tired). I took a nap, said mid-day
prayer, worked on this post, which Dominic noted was getting kind of long (it is
now 500 words past that point), stopped for some ice-cream, and all-in-all had
a good drive. It was a fun weekend,
something I greatly needed! Thanks to
all who made it possible – all the guys at St. Meinrad, all the guys who
practiced, etc. Thanks a ton!
On
another note, I just noticed that this post is 5 pages long, single-spaced, if
only I could whip out a 10 page philosophy paper in 2 hours… (I wish!). Also, sorry for no pictures of Brute playing, I wasn't on the bench for more then a few minutes, so I didn't have a chance to take any. Other people were taking some, so maybe I'll be able to get my hands on them!
I am going to copy the link from Saint Meinrad's Smugmug page. This has a lot of pictures from the soccer tournament. I tried copying this last night, but it did not work, so hopefully it does now: http://saint-meinrad.smugmug.com/Seminary/Seminary-Soccer-Tournament2013/33092438_sp49WN#!i=2870382414&k=mRWrXV3
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