Days 2 and 3- Winter Showcase

Day 2: Sunday, December 6th

The day began early for the U-16 and U-18 squads with a hearty Sunday morning breakfast. We got up at the early time of 8:30 even though we had no games or anything to do during the daytime. SLSG-Adventurers left for Squaw Peak, a mountain of epic proportions in the Arizona desert. We set out for the top. Approximately eight of the players went on an excursion “off the beaten path”. A park ranger spotted them and kindly inquired what organization they were affiliated with. With which they replied, “What!? We have to be on a path?”. They were then sent back down to the bottom of the mountain where they re-started their trip. Approximately twelve individuals made base camp at the half-mile mark up, immediately following Ariel Godinez nearly falling off the mountainside. He commented afterwards, “I like to live my life on the edge.” It took about forty-five minutes to reach the summit for the average individual, where we awaited the arrival of Big Deezy, Sweaty Hewitt, and Zach Baggins. While we waited, a woman of about the age of 50, wearing a jean skirt and having mini tattoos, and asked us what sort of team we are on. She then continued to describe to us her “cougar call” but she was too winded from the ascent to demonstrate. She particularly found the shirtless Kent Kobernus attractive, though she made fun of his colored hair behind his back. While SLSG-Farm Community continued to wait, a police helicopter sent out to pursue our team circled us repeatedly on top of the mountain. Fink recalls, “I thought they were there to recover Hewitt, but they were just messing with us.” When all of the team had joined us at the top, SLSG-Models got their picture taken and then headed back to the vans, a slow ascent. Some individuals ran at break neck speed down the hill “in pursuit of a gliding goddess” who was running down the mountain. She later told witnesses she did it every day.
We arrived back at the hotel where we were informed by Sergeant Decker that we were to meet at the pool in about an hour and a half. We all naturally assumed he was just joking about swimming due to the temperature in the 30’s outdoors the night before. Upon arriving at the pool, SLSG-Polar Bears were shepherded into the pool. Various exclamations heard in the pool during the Sparq warm up that followed include, “I hate Blake”, “Blake sucks”, “Decker die”, “Das Wasser is schitze kalt”, “esta muoy frio, blake es cruelil”, and “ah it hurts!”. SLSG-Popsicles ran to the hot tub where 33 young men crowded into a tub approximately the size of a bowl of cereal. We were then given twenty minutes to all shower and be ready to leave for dinner.
SLSG-Joey Chestnut headed towards Hometown Buffet, a place that focused on quantity over the quality. “The food was poopy,” but, “they had pretty good orange slushes”. A large complaint was about how they ran out of pink lemonade and chocolate milk. Torrence attempted to make a very tall ice cream cone, but when he tried to lick it, it fell off into his hand, where then he walked around for about three minutes trying to find a trash can to dump the ice cream in. We returned to the hotel and went to bed.

Day 3: Monday, December 7th
We started our day early Monday with breakfast. Cicciarelli said, “ridiculous service! Preposterous!” He would also like to add that close to a hundred people got their food before he did, despite his early order. Fink complains about the sugar free syrup too. Later on, we headed to the games.
The 93’s played a hard fought game and drew a tie. The weather was atrocious and uncommon in Phoenix. Fortunately for us, Illinois weather is perfect training for games like this, rainy and wet.
The game began with new faces in new positions. The fact that the ground was drenched in water made the pace of the game unbearably slow and not soccer like.
The 91’s played on the same field against New England Revolution’s U-18 academy team. The first half was filled with near chances with good play in the top third. We were rewarded a corner with about 10 minutes remaining in the first half. Ariel played a ball into the 6-yard box, where the goalie preceded to bat it down, to the feet of Vince who put the ball in the back of the net. There were a few more chances in the half but none were able to give us a 2-0 commanding lead. The second half was a back and forth battle with neither team scoring the second goal of the game. Walters, CJ, Sean, me(Clithero) and Bloomberg were the players coming off the bench, who were able to play a big role in the game. For starts, once Sean got in the game he immediately got a yellow card for a minor foul. Next I was able to score on a through ball played by Martin. It was a good ball leaving me wide open against the goalie and with the wet field I had to slow down because of the wet field conditions, a defender caught me but I was able to maintain control of the ball, the goalie came out and I was able to toe poke it through his legs and he was able to get a piece of the ball, but it still had enough to get past the line and into the back of the net. The remainder of the game was back and forth, with the best chance coming from a ball won by Kuster, who played me, then I played Walters who was able to get a good shot which was pushed past the post for a corner. The remaining of the game had no serious chances and we were able to solidify 3 points from a MLS team (they were actually just the MLS junior Academy team, not the actual MLS team, to clarify).
After the game, we went to celebrate at the local mall where we got Chinese, pizza, and candy by the fourth pound. One notable purchase was a foot-long gummy worm that Ariel purchased (rumor has it that it has been eaten already). A few other players purchased presents for their sweethearts at various stores. We are going to bed early now for a busy game/travel day tomorrow.

Fink, Brennan, Clithero, Kuster