This was the 2nd appearance for the Force ‘08 Girls at the Baker Blast Tournament in Bellingham, WA, having competed in it during their inaugural season last year.
The tournament was held the weekend of June 21-23, and started off Friday night with Force battling against Chilliwack FC from Canada. The Force girls started off a little sluggish, but eventually found their groove and got the win 3-1.
Saturday morning the first game of the day was against the host team, the Rangers FC, who were probably the most disciplined team that Force faced all weekend. But our girls were able to out fight them, and got another 3-1 win.
“I thought it was our best game so far, but just one of those games where we couldn’t find the back of the net.”
Saturday evening Force ‘08 Girls played the Abbotsford Storm from Canada. The girls played really well, but had a hard time finding the back of the net. The Force ‘08 Girls eventually did score—twice—and left with a 2-1 win over Abbotsford.
The Championship game Sunday afternoon was a rematch against the Rangers FC. It ended up being just what you’d expect—an all out battle!
About ten minutes into the game, one of the Force players took a pretty hard fall, and was out for the rest of the game. Then, about 5 minutes after that, Force lost another player due to injury—also done for the rest of the game. At halftime, the Force ‘08 Girls found themselves down 0-1 and without any subs.
“I knew it was going to be a mental and physical battle! The mental part is of course staying sharp against a team that you just beat the day before, and a physical battle because we were already down a couple players going into the game.”
Coach Henry tweaked the lineup a bit to start the second half, and that seemed to give the girls some new life. They scored an equalizing goal about ten minutes in. But that's where it stayed until the end of regulation. Ten minutes into extra time, the score was still tied 1-1, but that’s when the Force Girls simply ran out of gas. The Rangers ended up scoring 2 goals in the extra time period, to win 3-1.
“Overall, I am really proud of the grit the girls showed throughout the whole weekend. We have a couple of new girls to the team this year, and they only had about five practices prior to this tournament. So as a group, we are still trying to figure each other out. Making it to the championship game in the Premier division right out of the gate is pretty awesome.”
Congratulations Force ‘08 Girls for finishing as Finalists, and great job coaches! It looks like this team is picking right back up where it left off at the end of last season. The future looks very bright for these girls!
