Storm Finish 9th at U16 National Club Championships

July 17th, 2017 : On the face of it, finishing in the nations’ top 10 is a pretty good performance for our band of Long Island adventurers and yet players and parents left Spooky Nook feeling we deserved quite a bit more.

Winning five out of your six games at the Nationals is no mean feat, and two wins out of three in the initial pool play is usually a ticket to the upper bracket, but a three-way points tie saw the Storm team lose out on goal difference and disappointingly dispatched to the lower bracket for the second half of the competition. From there your best possible finish is 9^th and that requires three wins in a row which the Strom duly delivered, indeed after the first game’s narrow loss to Windy City (where the last five minutes cost us dearly), Storm actually won five games in a row and all by a single goal margin!

Several top 10 ranked teams fell victim to our bandits, including Saints, TCOYO, and Jersey Intensity in the final of the lower bracket and each and every game was a nail biter in true Storm fashion – why win it easy, eh!

Picking games or incidents from three days of drama is difficult, but standout moments included the five out of five shuttles scored during a penalty shoot out, Kate Gilligan’s second half shutout against a Saints onslaught, an Emily B piledriver in game one, a Sίofra drag flick corner to beat TCOYO and Kate Trizzino nipping in at the far post for a 3-2 win in the final game.

Special mention to Jamie who got better and better with each game, Sophia who was awesome throughout and coach John who engaged in a battle of deviousness with Lily and came out a distant second in that particular contest. Also special credit to the parents and siblings, who lived and died with us in each battle, supported the team tirelessly and who despite the tinge of regret on what might have been, were there at the end to celebrate a well earned victory in the lower bracket final.

Bring on the Fall, and Festival we are ready!