Not everything here is completely accurate… its just the best I could do with my memory (let me know if I got something incorrect).
Here is a link to last year’s (Feb) Mission Bowl story and the year before (07) if you want to read those. This year’s mission bowl was pushed up to November because of all the weather and field issues that the tournament had last year. So we can’t say its the 2009 mission bowl because it didn’t happen in 2009. We can’t say its 2008 mission bowl, because that one already happened.
So this year we had a lot less time to practice and train. We were notified that the tournament was going to be in November in the middle of September, so we really had on a couple months to practice. Another big change we had to go through this year was that Pam (our QB from the last two years) was in China and wouldn’t be playing in the tournament this year.
I also wasn’t sure if I wanted to coach this year because 1) I had started going to Kairos in Feb and 2) It just takes up a lot of time and a lot of time away from Cindy. Anyway, both Pastor Dalon and I decided to coach, but we decided that we would keep this year a “less intense” year and basically we would practice but not try to win that much since we had only 2 months to prepare when we usually prepare 4 months in advance.
That didn’t work out too well because as we got closer and closer to the tournament, it became more and more obvious that we had a very talented team. The more I realized how talented the team was the more I felt like we should do really well and have a good chance to go for it all. So the more I realized how talented of a team we had, the more the pressure built on me.
There was an infusion of great new talent to replace the loss of some of the players from last year as usual, but one big thing I noticed this year that I never noticed in years previous was that a lot of players that had been with us over 3-4 years had improved dramatically. There really is a big difference from being a “rookie” to being a “veteran.”
Anyway, on to tournament day. The tournament had the same format as it had last year. 2 game round robin. All six teams would make the playoffs but the top two seeds would get first round playoff byes. All six of the teams from last year returned. United, Kairos, Hope, Harbor, Harvest and Lighthouse. We drew Kairos as our first matchup and then Harbor.
Kairos
So being that Kairos is now my church and I’ve been going there for about 9 months, this matchup was pretty weird for me. I knew the coaches and some of the girls and Onechuel kept telling me how they were going to destroy us and how good “Superstina” was and how she was going to torch us. On top of that some of the girls on our team had heard how good Kairos was this year and how they were the team to beat this year. Well, personally I thought we were the team to beat, so I didn’t know what to make of all this talk.
Quickly I found out that Onechuel was not all talk. Superstina would catch these 5 yard quick slants and take them for 10-15 or more yards. The defense would get stops but we couldn’t consistently stop the Kairos offense. They scored twice, once on a reverse. Our offense couldn’t get on track either. We tried to throw the ball a lot and it didn’t work out too well. We ran a couple times for modest yardage, but when you’re playing from behind you want to throw the ball and Sylvia hadn’t really gotten into a rhythm yet. We didn’t score at all except for a safety and we lost 13-2.
That’s not how I expected to start the tournament. I knew that Kairos would be a tough team but I didn’t expect to lose to ANY team. There was also a bit of a rule mess up that made me pretty upset. The refs gave Kairos the ball to start the first and the second half, but that didn’t make the difference in the game anyway.
Sylvia was pretty dejected and I tried to rally the girls and keep them excited and pumped, but I don’t know if I did a good job or not.
Harbor
Now since we had a break after the Kairos game, I watched Harbor play a little and I had Simon scout Harbor for me. Simon provided a really detailed and extremely useful breakdown of the Harbor team. Harbor looked like a formidable opponent. They were being coached by the same coach who coached the mens team who were the mens champions a week earlier. I knew this was a tough team. Part of me didn’t even want to try to win this game because I knew we would probably have to conserve our players if we wanted to win the championship. But I knew we couldn’t do that because of team morale. We had to win this game. If we didn’t, people would start to doubt themselves and our team might crumble in the playoffs. The problem was, Harbor was an excellently coached team. They had really good execution.
We learned from Simon that Harbor ran the ball 70% of the time and that their QB was their main threat both running and passing. They would pass deep to the corners in order to keep us off of the run. Good thing our defense was geared to stop 2 things, the run and the deep ball. I put LeighAnn in as a QB spy against the quarterback.
From the very beginning our offense dominated their running attack. While their running attack was well executed, our defensive line just had more athleticism and penetrated the backfield consistently. Leigh Ann would be right behind them, pulling the flag or making a stop on the QB whenever she leaked out of the pocket. Leigh Ann had a lot of football smarts and she knew exactly when the QB committed to run and would dart in to stop her. Their QB “Chu” was very athletic, but Leigh Ann almost singlehandedly stopped her. Early in the first half we forced the QB into a bad throw and Eupheme caught an INT and ran it back to like the 2 yard line. It took a couple tries, but our offense finally punched it in.
Meanwhile our offense started to get on track a bit. We ran the ball a lot more and got Sylvia to run out of the pocket a bit and during the first half we scored a TD mostly pounding the sweep. In the second half they started containing with their linebackers so we couldn’t really run the ball anymore. Our passing offense hadn’t really gotten its rhythm yet, but I could tell that the offense was starting to regain some confidence.
We won the game pretty convincingly, 13-0. They never really got close to scoring on us because our defense was so good against them.
Hope
After lunch, our first playoff game was against Hope. Hope had played Lighthouse and Kairos and had lost both games. The game started off slowly with Hope driving all the way down the length of the field against us. When they were about to score, we put in our “special” defensive package and we stopped them. So our offense took over on the 2 yard line or something like that and we tried to run a sweep but got taken down for a loss. They scored a safety on us. At that point I was kinda worried. How could we be doing so poorly? Not that Hope was a horribly bad team or anything, but we weren’t supposed to be struggling this much.
The second defensive series, things changed. Eupheme intercepted another pass and ran it back in for a touchdown. This changed the momentum a lot. We converted the 2 point conversion making it 8-2. Sylvia started to run a lot during this game. We ran sweeps and they were pretty successful and we scored another TD on a combination of those. Sylvia also started to get her passing into rhythm as she completed some long passes. We won the game 15-2.
Our defense kept getting stop after stop. We would intercept the ball to stop the drive half of the time. A LOT of girls got interceptions throughout the day. It was great!
Lighthouse
Our next playoff game was against the defending champions of Mission Bowl and the tournament host, Lighthouse. Once again, it was very tense in the beginning of the game. The stress of the game when its close is ugh… yuck. But Eupheme again got the scoring started with an INT return for a TD. I give Gavin a lot of credit for putting her at cornerback for a lot of the game giving her opportunities to get pick sixes. That helped us out a lot. I don’t think we converted the 1pt conversion.
That’s the way it stayed for awhile. We were leading 8-0 at halftime. It was pretty nerve racking that entire time. I think that’s how I felt for most of the tournament, nervous. I remember thinking, is it halftime yet? Then I remember thinking, we still have 12 minutes to go until the end of the game? Soon after that though, the offense scored a TD giving us a cushion… I don’t really remember how. Near the end of the game we scored another TD, I think on runs mostly because PD told Sylvia to go conservative. At one point in the game, Sylvia started cramping and LeighAnn had to go in for QB a bit, but luckily Sylvia got back onto the field after awhile. So we won the game 21-0 though the game felt a lot closer than that.
Kairos (again)
Kairos and Harbor played in their playoff game and I heard that Harbor was up 12-0 but then Kairos miraculously came back with two TDs to tied the game. Then they went into overtime and played 4 overtime periods. It took a long time but finally Kairos won the battle. I knew Harbor was a well coached team, but nonetheless I was surprised they were able to hang with Kairos, which I thought was the superior team.
I told my team that though Kairos beat us the first game, we were going to beat them this time. We were going to pull out all the tricks and do everything we could to beat them. I put in our “special” defensive package for most of the game. Truth be told, I really wanted to play Harbor because Superstina gave me nightmares. How could we stop her?
It was a defensive stalemate for most of the game. Sylvia did complete some long passes, but we could never punch it into the endzone. On one play, Sylvia threw the ball deep to Angie and Angie was running behind all the Kairos defenders toward the endzone. Ruth, Kairos’s deep safety, ran and caught Angie from behind and grabbed her flag on the 5 yard line. We had a couple penalties after that and could not punch the ball in.
Kairos’ defensive line was very good and penetrated and gave our offense some trouble behind the line of scrimmage.
Our defense was doing very well, but the special package did not give them as much trouble as I thought it would. Leigh Ann had to come out because she was cramping. Eupheme kept knocking down passes and our defense was performing well, but I was expecting Esther (Kairos QB) to get sacked a lot more often. Our defense produced a lot of sacks this game too, but just not as much as I thought they would.
So the sun was going down and the refs told us that if the sun was going down, they would just give us a 2 minute warning and then end the game. We were going to have a 0 minute halftime… basically they would just reset the ball. There was no time.
Then Kairos finally hit Superstina on a quickslant yet again and she waltzed into the endzone making our defenders miss the flag a couple times. I thought we had lost at that point. They didn’t score the extra point but we had not been able to score at all against their defense so far, and the sun was getting lower.
But on the next possession, Sylvia hit Natasha long on a corner route and Natasha ran all the way down the sideline. Ruth again was closing in on Natasha but missed the flag grab at the goalline and Natasha scored! We tied the game! We couldn’t convert the extra point either (close play) and so we were tied 6-6. Then Kairos started driving again. They then ran a reverse on 3rd down and their ball carrier (Superstina, who else) was running towards the sideline. Our corner (Mindy) was doing her job by staying home on the play and Esther saw that she could potentially break up the play so Esther threw a block on Mindy and they both went down.
Our safety pulled the flag and while they gained a lot of yardage, they didn’t make the first down. But, the bigger concern was that neither Mindy, nor Esther got up from the ground. They didn’t get up for a long time and both teams started praying. Eventually the refs wanted to talk and I think it was mainly Leigh Ann’s idea to go for Co-Champions rather than to finish the game. We consulted our girls and they were happy with that idea. We didn’t want anybody else to get hurt and the light was winding down.
The refs wanted to go immediately into overtime play, but we wanted to propose Co-Champions. Sung and the rest of the Kairos coaches consulted the Kairos girls and they were happy with it too. It was a good idea and a good compromise. I liked it a lot because I really didn’t want to beat Kairos because Kairos is my church now… but I also didn’t want to lose to them either.
So in the end, Kairos and United were co-champions. It was a great ending. Everyone cheered and we all gathered in the middle of the field telling each other how great everyone played. I think everyone was very happy with the ending.
Conclusion
Team United was loaded with talent both on offense and defense. The defense probably intercepted 10+ passes during the tournament. We played 5 games and went 3-1-1 and were declared co-Champions with Kairos. What an accomplishment. Women you all played great and I was proud to coach all of you. Congratulations to the Kairos women also. Us guys have a lot to learn from the graciousness that these women play football with.
