National Indoor Soccer Champions!

Sometimes we just don't think things through. Hmmm...a soccer tournament in Cleveland...in the middle of winter...the whole family cheering for Renae and her teammates...seemed like a good idea at the time.

It started snowing when we hit Toledo. It would not stop until there were 20 inches on the ground! We bought the last available snow shovel at the CVS...the only store you could access from the main road. I had to literally dig a parking space every time I moved the car. (quite often with four games scheduled each day!) At one point I was on a highway entry ramp and I could not tell where the road stopped and the ditch began!

I had spent the prior week in NY...and the week before at a conference in Florida. Along the way I caught a severe case of the flu and Anne had done the same. The hotel messed up our accommodations and I had to sleep on the floor. By Saturday night Jaine had contracted a bladder infection. Things were getting ugly...except on the soccer field!

We had managed to keep Renae away from us so she was still in good health. She was rostered on both a U10 boys team and a U11 girls team the club recently "pieced" together for tournament play.

The competition was ferocious. Fast and aggressive play was the order of the day...at times barely resembling soccer. This put us at a bit of a disadvantage as our players tend to be younger and smaller and tend to play a more controlled game. It was difficult for our teams to get into a rhythm as the other teams' style of play was so disruptive. There were times when players on the other team were clearly out to hurt our players and our girls were leaving the field in tears.

Nonetheless....skill prevailed! The U10 boys missed the playoff rounds by one goal! The U11 girls team, however, made it to the final and defeated a team from Maryland to win the national championship! In the opposing coach's post game speech, he thanked our girls for a great game and said that if they had to lose he was glad to lose to a team who "beat them with great skill versus their bare knuckles". This was a great compliment.

The victory barely sunk in before we were loading up the van and heading for home...it finally hit us at a rest stop midway back to Chicago...after all the snow and illness and challenging play...we had won! WOW!

We pulled into our driveway Monday morning around 1am. The girls had school 6 hours later! Another restful weekend for the Melone family!