Party Hard tonight. You're road trippin to Atlanta next weekend. What a beautiful finish and a come from behind heart stopper. The crowd sounded wonderful! Cheers! Kirsten
What a great game! The two teams I wanted in the Finals are there. Now it's gonna be tough to root against Abby, but since Carolina has 2 former Gators, go Courage! Riise was awesome as usual today, Fotop with a pressure PK there at the end to send it to OT and then Prinz/Overbeck to win it, what an amazing game, should be a great final next week!
Way to go, Carla. That's my girl! I knew she was gonna get the shot, at least, when she took off on that run. Nice job, ladies.
Congratulations guys. Great finish! After watching the first part of the game following the other semi-final I decided to stick with it, after the weather delay, instead of switching over to SJ's MLS match, I'll watch it on tape later. Very entertaining match!
Congrats to Carolina! You all were giving me a tension headache there for the last half of that match!!
Carla... I take it all back! Nel Fettig was flawless... she rivals Hege for player of the match. What an amazing game... must watch the video to see if the referees' calls were as outrageous as they seemed, from our completely unbiased point of view.
misconduct Unofficial: Misconduct Summary: ATL -- Julie Augustyniak (caution) 31st. ATL -- Kylie Bivens (caution) 38th. ATL -- Julie Augustyniak (ejection) 57th. ATL -- Charmaine Hooper (caution) 65th. CAR -- Unni Lehn (caution) 68th. ATL -- Marci Miller (caution) 88th.
Back from SAS! Hey, how about our team?! We stayed late at the stadium, cheering the players one by one as they left the field and headed to the locker room. It was like a big party -- everybody was so happy! Enough of this posting. I'm gonna go watch it all over again on tape. (Was that referee as blind as it appeared sometimes?!) Woo-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
photos Here is a photo of Atlanta's foul in the box that resulted in our penalty kick: http://sports.yahoo.com/wusa/gallery/20020817/1029626121wusa_beat_courage_ncsg103.html Other photos from game: http://sports.yahoo.com/wusa/gallery
WOO-HOO! We did it! Great job, Carla and team! Good job to Washington, too. The two basement teams from last year make it to the top - what do you know?!
video -- oops I set my VCR to record for 2 hours 40 minutes just in case of a delay... and Carla's goal was at the 2 hour 35 minute mark from the taping start, so we were so psyched to see everything. Well, unfortunately, I mistakenly put a 2-hour tape in the machine. So we missed a lot of the action. Anyone get the last 40 minutes on tape???? Anyhow, we were able to see that we should have gotten that penalty kick call in the first few minutes of the game when Hege was pushed down. Also, Fotop was definitely guilty of the foul that lead to Atlanta's penalty kick against us. Top.... it is bad enough to push in the box but to push one and then another player down?! Please try to be stealthier! There was virtually no play-by-play in the first half. The media folks ignored the game. Sigh. Hope they upgrade the commentators next week. Or at least next year.....
I think the "game ball" should go to McDermott. Absolutely fantastic, shocking, incredible usage of Overbeck. With her legs, there is no way she can play this game. But Marcia threw her wide up top, where her crosses and experience could work, and gave her no defensive responsibilities at all. Brilliant. If Hege Riise is not voted the MVP of the league, then something is horribly wrong. Both Prinz and Fotop were off tonight. Fotop was caught celebrating Hege's crossbar and Fettig's right post instead of being ready to pounce on a rebound. Prinz seemed to shy away from using her size and strength in the box, floating around the edges avoiding Nonen. But Riise, wow. Awesome. We owned the game. Tsapos was a disgrace. Atlanta was awful. He had to stop himself from pulling two late yellows when he realized he was about to send off more Atlanta players. Throw in the fact that our one real foul in the box was a penalty for the Beat, yet we had to be hauled down on three seperate occaisions to get our first penalty kick of the year. This rocks. Any idea on how many Courage fans are going down to Atlanta? Scott and I are travelling on Thursday after work. Scott is working on his photos as we speak. I hope they'll be up tomorrow. Go Courage!
Post-match write ups From the Durham Herald-Sun: http://www.heraldsun.com/sports/soccer/48-258400.html
That was a great game.The last 10 minutes were as intense as I've seen all year.Congrats Blue Lions.Dat Hege,she is da real deal,yaaa.
From the Winston Salem Journal: http://www.journalnow.com/wsj/sports/MGBXC8SC05D.html From the Raleigh News & Observer: http://sports.newsobserver.com/sports/story/1647482p-1673840c.html