They are the Champions!!

What an exciting morning for the Heinisch family on the soccer field.  Meg's team had the first game of the tournament at 9 a.m.  By the time Brett, Cam and I arrived 7 minutes into the game they were already down 2-1.  That deficit must have woke Doug's team up as they then outplayed their opponent the rest of the time and easily won 4-3.  Even watching the other team's coach get ejected from the game didn't rattle "The Niners!"

The undefeated gray team narrowly won the next game to advance to the finals against Meg's.  Doug and Meg's team had played them several times in the regular season and had lost.  Although the show down for today's championship was set in the morning, the anticipation of the game had been building all week.  Meg has a lot of her friends from Milford on her team - Graham, Meghan, Hope, Eric (times 2) and Cameron.  The gray team has all of the rest of her Milford soccer friends - Lauren, Gabby, Joe and Preston.  The trash talking had grown ugly and each team was sure that they would be the victors.
From the first few minutes of the game Meg's team took control and never looked back.  An own goal by the gray team seemed to knock the wind out of their sails early, but they were ever confident that they would rebound once their "superstar" player returned from a baseball game for the second half.  I believe they must have underestimated the talent and selflessness of Doug's team.  No one cared to be the superstar, and they completely took the other teams best players out of the game.

Meg's team dominated today's match easily winning 4-0.  There were many highlights from the game for me.  I watched Meg give up a shot on goal to pass to Graham in the hope that he would score his first goal.  Meg also took a shot to the face that knocked her down and got a grasp from the crowd.  She was up ready to go and in the next session of plays scored with her left foot on a beautiful breakaway run.

My favorite moment of the day, however, occurred as Meg was called for offsides.  One of the sixth graders whom Meg has known for quite awhile said loud enough for all to hear, "Ha! Ha! You were offsides."  Meg didn't miss a beat, turned to him and replied even more loudly, "Ha! Ha! We're winning!"  I loved it.  She truly is a Heinisch - neither pain nor the negative words of an opponent can slow her down.