Fairy Tale Elements Prevent a Grimm Performance
Fairy tales, such as those told by the Grimm Brothers, often contain elements such as fairy godmothers, magical clothing, or the use of the number three. We see it in Ashputtle (Cinderella), Snow White and Rose Red, and The Three Feathers. Throughout Saturday, a series of events, that at first seemed ominous, later became almost miraculous. It was as if we were playing a part within a Grimm fairy tale.
To say that we were not that excited about driving an hour and forty-five minutes down to Exeter in toasters to meet the team who beat NMH 2-0 (after we lost to NMH 0-6), would be a vast understatement. Then we got the news that we would take the KUA bus and had a driver – this was good!
As we were about to leave, Simon realized he had left his cleats were in his locker (#1). Fortunately for him, Adi was late, so we had a little time and he ran and got them. Then when we were driving down, we learned that Jacob’s cleats had blown apart at the end of our last practice. He had been desperately texting people all morning looking for a pair to borrow (#2). When we arrived on Exeter’s campus, a woman (fairy godmother?) met us and showed up where to hike for our game. Along the way, someone asked Brian where his cleats were. He looked down at his feet and realized he’d left them on the bus. He turned to go get them and found that the bus had moved. (#3). Things looked bleak. We were already down two players because we had had to leave Kohki back on campus so he could take the SATs and Michael’s knee was still hurting from his collision at the last game.
When we arrived at the field, miraculously, a pair of the correct-sized cleats were waiting at our bench. This was incredibly fortuitous, for later we were told to move fields. The original one was a bit wet so, at the last minute, the game was moved to the varsity field. If we hadn’t warmed up on that original field, Jacob would have missed the first twenty minutes of the game waiting for a new pair of boots from his parents. In addition, we arrived at 1:30 expecting a 2:00 game, but there was no opposing team warming up. We went to the Exeter schedule and learned that they had planned on a 2:30 game. As it turned out, mentally, we needed that extra time to prepare for the match.
This too proved lucky.
And what a match it was! By far, it was probably the best and smartest we have played all season.
We knew we would have to play strong defensively, so we moved some people around. We maintained a five-man defensive line, rotating: Jacob Hebbel, Brian Lee, Cam Barton, Ollie Cozzi, Tom Huang, Conrad Lopez Moss, and Simon Nowlan. At midfield we had combinations of Will Stedina, Trong Phan, Amir Lesbek, and Adi Lesbek. Up front, we swapped in Will Sewell, Ian Surgenor, Jacob Rimberg, Leo Barta, and Aidan Davie. But we kept Mario Espurz Garcia in the net all game long.
By game time, Brian had located his cleats and was ready to play.
We were feeling pretty good.
For the next forty minutes, we saw drive after drive, but most of the movement was in the middle of the field. In all that time we had one shot opportunity: Will Sewell sent a cross to Ian, but the keeper was able to snag it. However, Mario was outstanding in the goal. Fourteen times he stopped, blocked, or watched as Exeter attempted to score. They were keeping us from getting in too close, but we were making them work. At one point we heard an Exeter defenseman say to his coach, “I can’t do this. This is too much up and down the field.” At the end of the first half, we were tied 0 – 0 and we were feeling very proud of how we were playing.
The second half continued as the first except we kept Exeter down to only four shots in the first twenty minutes. Then Exeter earned a direct kick. This half, Mario had the late afternoon sun in his eyes. Exeter sent the ball in and Mario got his body and arms in front of it but he lost it briefly in the sun and it dribbled out of his hands.
A rushing Exeter striker was able to get behind Mario and pushed the ball in for a goal. This could have deflated any team who had worked as hard as we had, but it didn’t.
Exeter was fired up and attacked the net seven more times and kept Mario busy, but we were far from being beaten. In fact, we took the last three shots of the game in the last three minutes: Will Sewell passed to Ian and he shot from the top of the box, but it was saved.
Will Stedina sent a ball to Ian, who chipped it up to Sewell, but the keeper jumped in. Leo passed the ball out to Trong who blasted it just wide of the post.
Although we lost the match, we felt great about how we had played against such a strong team. At the end one of the refs came over to our bench and complimented our boys: “You showed good sportsmanship and you worked hard.” Coach Custer turned to me and nodded in agreement and said, “We were tough!”
So, although we faced obstacles that seemed to come from a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, we also had the fortuitous magic that often give the heroes the extra little extra boost needed to succeed. We hope we can continue this level of intensive grit this Wednesday when we play our last game of the season at home against New Hampton.
