Blue Thunder Goes Under
Blue Thunder Goes Under
San Ramon Blue Thunder came prepared to play, celebrate a victory and claim first place in division one of the class IV under 19 girls soccer league. They even brought a cake!! What they didn’t prepare for, was running into the Fremont Extreme. The undefeated 6-3-0 Blue Thunder had sat a top the standings all year, only allowing 5 goals in 9 games. From a statistical standpoint a very very good team. They may have thought that this was going to be another walk in the park. They were sorely mistaken. The 5-3-1 Extreme knew going into the game that if we won, each team would have the exact same record and that the first “tie-breaker” would be head to head competition. Since this is the first and only time we play San Ramon this year, if our Fremont girls won, we win it all. A tie or loss for Fremont would put them in second place, a still outstanding accomplishment considering Extreme rarely took the field with 11 players or substitutes.
It didn’t look good early. In pregame warm-ups goalkeeper Kate got kicked in the knee (her bad knee) by one of her team mates during a drill. A total accident that sent Kate to the pitch in severe pain. Kate stayed down for quite awhile while coach, teammates and mom tried to comfort her. She knew that she was needed, today more than ever, so she sucked it up, got to her feet, limped to the goal and played through the pain. She could barely walk much less react well or kick the ball. Her teammates knew she was hurting and tried their best to keep the ball away so she wouldn’t have to do much work. Fortunately for us we have the best fullback in the league in Melissa McClure who all day (and all season) had chased down balls, chased down opposing players, and has been Kate’s savior on many many occasions. Melissa is Kate’s MVP, that’s for sure.
The match was evenly played most of the first half and the 0-0 score reflected that. Extreme had a few early opportunities to score but were denied by the tough Blue Thunder defense. By pure coincidence, our own Kelly Flaherty happen to be near the ball as it went out of bounds resulting in a corner kick for the our team, up until this point Kelly had never even kicked a corner kick. Her specialty was to be in front of the goal on corner kicks and try to head or punch the ball in. Today however, for some reason, after two other unsuccessful corner kicks by her team mates, Kelly said “let me take this one”. Kelly kicked the ball so hard she fell on her butt. But no one was watching Kelly. All eyes were on the ball as it sailed high towards the front of the goal. Who knows what it was, the wind, the spin, the falling on her butt? Whatever it was, it made the ball curve just enough, and get just high enough to sail over the outstretched hands of the goalie, who barely got a finger on the ball, and into the net. SCORE!!!!!! An unassisted goal on a corner kick by Kelly!! What a great shot!! The crowd went wild!! At least the Fremont crowd did. The San Ramon parents were in shock!! I don’t think their team had ever been behind in score all season. WOOHOO! Extreme takes the lead 1-0 into the half!!
Kate was in so much pain that the coach wanted her to sit out since we had a lead. That meant we were going to play the second half “man down”. Blue Thunder came out to play the second half with a sense of urgency, playing very physical ball. So physical that about 10 minutes into the second half they took out one of our star forwards, Katherine, with a shot to the shoulder, At first we thought she had broken her collar bone or dislocated her shoulder. Since we were then going to be “two man down”, Kate again sucked it up and got back in the goal. Katherine even got back into the game after some ice and rest. And good thing too because we needed all the help we could get. Blue Thunder continued to pressure and play good hard soccer. Time after time the Extreme denied them their opportunities by clearing the ball out. Midway through they second half San Ramon scored past a diving Kate to tie the score 1-1. All they had to do was sit on the ball, settle for the tie, and claim the championship. The Blue Thunder started the second half with another goalie in their box. We think it was their “good” goalie who could preserve the tie and let them claim the victory. Unfortunately for them, Kelly was our new corner kicker! With about 10 minutes to go in the match, we had another corner kick, all the girls were saying “Come on Kelly, do it again” she told them that lightning rarely strikes twice. She got a hold of another good one and sailed it to the goal. it was deflected by someone and was bouncing around like a pinball. Somehow our forward Sapna got her head on the ball and put it in the net GOAL!!!!!!!!!!
Lightning strikes twice as Kelly gets the assist. Extreme leads 2-1.
From then on it was a nailbiter. The Blue Thunder went into panic mode and really started to press. Kate had a couple of great saves that really took the wind out of San Ramon’s sails. One shot on goal Kate had to get up and fully extend to get a high one going toward the goal. DENIED AGAIN!! Seems the last few minutes of the game took hours!! But in the end the whistle blew and the Extreme were victorious!!. WE WIN!!! WE WIN!! WE WIN!! Final Score 2-1 (WOOT!)
Kelly had one goal and one assist, Both on corner kicks. Kate had several great saves while playing hurt. Kate may have been the inspiration for the team this day. Her playing in pain made her teammate play harder. And they all played great soccer. After the game the team went to the middle of the field and had one GREAT BIG GROUP HUG!!! It was touching. They knew that they had accomplished something special. Not only beating the 1st place team in hostile territory, but claiming first place with the win. San Ramon still ate their cake after the game, but I’m sure it didn’t taste as good. It wasn’t championship cake. The champions, Fremont Extreme, will eat the championship cake on home turf!
