On Top Of The World

Tuesday was a big day for the Lady Royals, as they hosted the Coughlin Crusaders for an afternoon of field hockey at Hollenback.  Before the match, Coughlin seemed to be a difficult challenge for HR- They are a division 1 team, with a winning record, and prior matches with teams of that level had generally not gone Redeemer's way.  After the Crusaders jumped out to a 2-0 lead, it looked to be a long day ahead for the Royal faithful.

Most of you probably know what happened next-  Redeemer tied the match at 2, went ahead 3-2, then gave up a goal to push the match to overtime.  It seems that the girls are determined to be the "Cardiac Queens" as this was the fourth time this season that a game would be decided in extra time.  Chances abounded in the extra frame, HR even had a goal disallowed before finally burying the game-winner.

The win brings the girls very close to .500 for the season, and perhaps more importantly, increases their hold on a playoff spot (I am guessing there.  PIAA's playoff voodoo is a bit of a mystery to me).  It also shows that the Royals can play with some of the top teams in the area.  As the picture above shows, this big win left the team On Top Of The World.

A few thoughts-

I understand this game only slightly.  Very slightly.  My observations then, are probably overly simplistic.  Here's what I picked up on Tuesday-

The ball carry.  I know this happens in soccer, usually when a team is behind and wants to restart as soon as possible after a goal is scored.  Instead of waiting for the leading team to lazily bring the ball back to midfield, thereby wasting precious time, the trailing team will grab the ball, run it back, and force the game to start sooner.  It seemed like every goal was handled this way on Tuesday, with no regard to who was ahead at the time.  Are these girls just that courteous?

I am not sure why this gentleman was asked to move- perhaps he had something to do with an orange ball?

I am getting a lot of intense face shots during the downtime of each game.  I think that the mouthguard actually makes a face look more determined.  Not to say that the girls are not determined anyway, of course....

What do you think the guy in the Ryan Howard jersey is doing?

Don't adjust your monitor- the blurry look to this shot is because it was through the net.  That's about as creative as I get.

As usual, I managed to catch Kelly in an embarrassing moment- This time I got Marilyn too though.

Speaking of Marilyn-  No fair changing your jersey number without notifying our staff...  I thought it was odd that I had so many photos of Lauren all of a sudden.

Everyone will remember the game-winning goal in OT, but lets not forget, this save was just as critical to the victory.

I guess the swine flu fear is over.

Credit the paper today for choosing this game for the lead article (in the online version anyway).  I thought I was going to get an explanation of why the first HR goal in OT was disallowed, but here is the quote- "Earlier in the 15-minute overtime period, it appeared the Royals had scored the game-winning goal – setting off a short-lived celebration – but it was not allowed by the officials because the ball went off a Holy Redeemer player."  Again- I am no expert, but don't almost all of the goals that HR scores go in off our own player?  I think I see the point here, but it seems poorly worded.  Living with an English teacher makes one a little fanatical about such things.  The paper went on to call the victory "bittersweet" for coach DeFalco- from the looks of the picture on here, it was for more sweet than bitter.

Interesting happenings at the cozy mountain retreat today- halfway through loading the photos up to smugmug, a tree fell in the forest (I was here to hear it) and took out the power/internet connection for the day.  If you visited earlier, you may have only seen about 1/2 of the shots-  they are all up now.

Gallery is here.

FotoFink can be had here.  That sounds wrong.

Enjoy!