Valiant 2nd Half Comeback Effort Falls Short

The Kimball Union Academy junior varsity girls' soccer team put up a valiant struggle in the second half of today's match against Exeter, only to fall a tad short in the end. While the score at the referee's final whistle read two for the Wildcats and four for Exeter, the full story of the game had to be witnessed to truly be understood. During his youth, my father was an avid horse racing fan. When my father was older, he would take me to Suffolk Downs in Boston, MA and together we would handicap the races. My father often told me that using the racing form to handicap races was more or less impossible. The problem with using the racing form, my dad explained, was that you had actually seen the horses running in order to understand the races! Sure, a horse may have finished sixth or seventh in four straight races, but what if that horse had been blocked in on the rail by other riders, or perhaps had  been caught and delayed on a muddy stretch of track. My father told me that, in order to accurately handicap a race, you have to actually see the previous races of those particular horses. The same is true of soccer. One could look at the score line of today's game and conjecture that it was a failed effort on KUA's part. But if one actually saw the game from the sidelines, an entirely different story would have unfolded. The Kimball Union Academy girls put forth an extraordinary effort in the second half, twice coming back from two goals down to nearly draw even with a far more talented and experienced Exeter squad. The dedication that the girls from Meriden demonstrated to the enterprise, and to each other, was quite extraordinary! Of particular note today where the efforts of Brittany Kainen and Alicia Goodwin. Both put forth tremendous efforts on behalf of the team. There is not much else to say. When the game had ended, both teams were satisfied: Exeter maintained their undefeated record at 7-0-2, and the Kimball Union Academy Wildcats left the field with heads held high after putting together a second half to remember.