July 12-We Will Be Bringing Home Hardware

So, the National Games are essentially over for us. Hard to believe. We made it out to the fields and set up. It became kind of routine. 14 of the girls were able to play in the last game--unfortunately, Meg's ankle was too sore to play. We knew that North Hawaii was a strong team, and I told the girls that this was their last chance to win and to score a goal. Also, I knew going in that we were leading in sportsmanship points, and made it clear that we needed to be positive and sportsmanlike in order to win that award.

I spent countless hours over the past month working out lineups and rotations, but between injuries, and things that I saw here, the lineup that took the field was nothing like the ones I thought I would use.

Our girls played their hearts out. There is a cliche in sports about leaving everything on the field, and this team really did. The quality of play, the decisionmaking and the courage of this team was unbelievable. However, when faced with a much stronger, battle tested team such as North Hawaii, we had no chance to win. The game ended 5-0, but our girls walked off the field feeling like they had achieved an enormous amount. I think that many of them found things inside them that they didn't know existed.

After the game, we watched our U16B team lose to Ontario, CA, taking them out of any chance to advance to the next round.

And we waited for the sportsmanship results. The team was justifiably proud of their victory. It is easy to be upbeat and positive when you are winning, but how great is it that they could be that way when they were getting pummeled and hurt?

After the boys' game was over, we returned to the hotel, had lunch, and about half the team went to the beach for a while.

Then a dip in the pool.

Then dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory, which was fun and delicious.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Hawaii. We will try to snorkel in the morning. Then, we need to go back to the fields to receive our sportsmanship awards. We are planning a final dinner at a Chinese restaurant, and then, I guess, we need to pack.

By the way, this team wants to stay together and is already planning for West Palm Beach in 2010. Who am I to say that it won't happen.