Thursday, October 8, 2009

On a Low

Yde wrote a sports short in the Cactonian paper of note (The glossy paged Priory Press)of the JV soccer team: "JV Soccer opened their season on September 11th, with a 5-1 victory over Edmund Burke, but lost on the 16th to Wilson (Coach says we need a can-do spirit, but I must acknowledge that this is DC's most desirable public high school) 4-2 in the Abbey's home opener. The team is very confident about how far they can go. "We're gonna go all the way", said Captain K (Sophomore)."


I will not lie. There were many happy times that goals were made while joking about the last one. But at 3:00pm there was no indication of what was to come. Maybe in a lyrical sense there was. A windy day that chilled the fingers. Best memories from the Saint Thomas middle school team in frosty New York Novembers. In the shadow of the NRC and that new glass prism that's rising near White Flint, a game was played that, well, didn't show the best of the team's ability. They were allegedly a "second-rate team", but the record of us against them shows otherwise. First half, us up one, wind mildly in our favor, second half, tied after a glorious penalty goal kick worthy of replay, winds moderately out of favor. Heartbeats were modified in what seemed like very good luck, that balls kind of seemed to go over the goal. Final score 1-1. Not too terrible, solidifies us as better than the .500 that we came in with. When we congratulated the other team, it was perfect. There really was no loser. But we could have done better. A mildly injured player came off and said, "forget about it (winning by 3 to make up for the loss against WIS), we're playing (crud)".

If Captain K can speak for the team, I wonder whether the others had the same feeling that fateful day recently. Well, with some hard practice, anything is possible. Let's do better on Saturday.

There aren't ever retributions for giving glorious praise to the team. I'm not condemning anyone, it's just how it felt to tie.

Vague references were left to protect idetities but were sometimes used for artistic purposes.

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