Even More on Soccer

Yesterday I made it into the Daily News for the third time since we moved here. Believe it or not, I scored a goal in my soccer game on Sunday! Here's the short brief from the sports section:

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Women's Soccer League results

ST. THOMAS - Pearl Morton tallied five goals to lead the Golden Stars to an 8-3 win over the Baby Rays on Sunday in the first of three games in the USVI Soccer Association's St. Thomas Region's Micro-Six-a-Side Women's League. Morton's first goal gave the Golden Stars an early 1-0 lead, but Dyann Peltier soon tied the game at 1-1 with the first goal of her hat trick for the Baby Rays. Morton then took over, scoring their other four goals while getting scoring help from Monique Chetram and Ann-Marie Dublin.

In the second game of the day, Don't Blame Us cruised to a 10-1 win over the Baby Rays. Rachel Brown led Don't Blame Us with four goals, followed by Vita Charlery's two and one goal each from Kendra Nielsam and Audath Mockovciak. Jenae Richardson scored the lone goal for the Baby Rays.

Play continues in the league at 3:30 p.m. Sunday at the UVI field with three games.

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Don't worry about the little inaccuracies in that clip, like how the goals in my game only add up to 8-1, while the Daily News tallies it to 10-1. The ref said it was 9-1, so who knows. The important part is - I scored a goal! My teammates had to pass it to me and assist me at least three times before it finally happened, but we clearly weren't hurting for goals so it was okay.

Something I keep forgetting to mention in all my posts about soccer lately. We play at the University of the V.I. soccer fields, which are right by the airport. I've never been outside so close to an airport this much before. The helicopters land super close to the field, and we've hit at least one with a ball so far (don't worry - it was parked). It is kinda funny when the coach is yelling at us and suddenly a 747 lands or takes off and we can't hear him at all but his mouth is still moving. It doesn't happen that often though, less than once an hour I'd guess.

Because there are so few major flights, a lot of people here seem to know the flight schedules pretty well. For instance, when I mentioned my brother-in-law and his wife were arriving on Monday from North Carolina around 4pm, I heard "oh that's nice, they must have gotten the non-stop on US Air." Guess that's what happens when you live here long enough and the airlines keep their schedules constant.

The best thing about playing at UVI though is that during Tuesday afternoon practices, we can hear a steel drum band playing. I assume the band is practicing at UVI. It's fun to listen while we play and it reminds me that here I am in the Caribbean trying out for the V.I. National Soccer Team.

On Sunday I've another soccer game, the last one in this half of the league's tournament. The tournament resumes in mid-April I believe. Also on Sunday, the coaches will announce which 16 players from our league have been picked to go to St Croix to continue try-outs for the VI National Team. It's also my birthday and my parents will be here. So the weekend should be fun and action-packed.