This year, Addison didn't have to attend tryouts for ODP, as they told her that she made the 2019/2020 team in late summer, after Birmingham camp in July 2019. It was exciting that her teammate, Morgan made the team, and joined Mikalya and her on of the 2 - 2008 South Texas Girls' teams. They had practices in San Marcos in the Fall. College Station friendlies, the weekend of December 15 & 16 was one gorgeous soccer weekend for the games. Addison and Mikalya were on A team and Morgan got to play up with them one of the 3 games. The 6 of us hung out Saturday night and the girls had the moms learning Tik Tok dances and doing plank challenges into the evening. Addison played an awesome 2 out of 3 games, including a solid game on Sunday against the top North Texas team, coming from behind with a win of 3-1.
Just a couple of days later, we got the email stating that Addison, along with Morgan and Mikayla had made the final team of 14, for the Florida Regional Finals in just a month's time.
On January 12, 2020 - Addison had an all day local ODP practice here in San Antonio. It was a gorgeous weekend and they learned some amazing information about tips on how to best do free kicks and corner kicks.
It was time for Regional Championships in Auburndale, Florida. On Thursday, January 23, Addison and I flew into Orlando on a 6PM flight from San Antonio and they started their game mid morning Friday. We started, by playing, arguably the best team out of the 12 regional teams - Florida's 1st Team. Addison started as goalie and only got scored on once so they went into the half 0-1. Liesel, the other goalie went in the 2nd half and had 2 goals scored on here and they lost 0-3. Not a great way to start the tournament. Later that afternoon, the 2nd game was vs. Tennessee's 2nd team. Addison played the 2nd half. It was 0-0 when she went in and they ultimately won 2-0 with no goals scored on them.
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| Florida and South Texas Regions |
Saturday started with a game versus North Carolina. Addison started but, unfortunately, there wasn't any action on the field for Addie and they won 6-0. Everyone was hopeful after 2 big victories, thinking we had a change at the final wild card spot for the championship. I took Mikayla and Addison to see Little Women and we joined the Cunninghams for dinner before heading back the hotel for a good night's sleep.
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| North Carolina and South Texas Region. |
Due to caps on goals scored per game, we missed the wild card spot by one point and played Tennessee's 1st team, Sunday morning. It was a very intense game, a lot more physical than the girls had seen yet. Addie played the second half and they were down on her side of the field for much of it, taking lots of shots and 2 penalty shots. The final score was 4-2 and although she had gotten scored on, she saved 2 major penalty shots including an incredible one at the very end of the game. I was super proud of how she kept her head in the game.
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| Tennessee 1st Team and South Texas Region. |
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| Coach Floppy - Abe Garcia |
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| Coach Jon Gardner |
We watched the 2008 girls' finals game between Georgia and Florida. It was a gorgeous day. It was 0-0 and still 0-0 towards the end of 20 minutes over time. Then the Florida goalie was scored on in the final 2 minutes. It was controversial inside the goal that she got hit and the linesman called the goal back but the Florida goalie couldn't get ahold of her emotions and focus and after she distributed the ball back, Georgia came back to score on her within 15 seconds. It was a great lesson for both me and Addison to watch. On the way back to Orlando, we stopped at Disney Springs and I was so glad we weren't on a Disney vacation!
