Hannah's+Soccer+Games--Word+Choice

You know that feeling when you are about to go out on stage to perform, whether it's for a dance recital, or for a school program. When you can't decide if you’re excited, or scared out of your pants because you want to do your best, and be the best. It feels like your stomach is overflowing with about 500 butterflies. That's what I was feeling today. Not because I had recital or a school program, no, it was because I had my first soccer game of the season.

We were all getting ready for the game. It was time. "Tossing the coin. Soccer Rockers guess," said the referee. She tossed it and I had hollered, "Tails." Tails never fails!

...Except for that time. It was heads, other team got kickoff. It was time to start the game. Of course my dad had the air horn for every time we made a goal. The other team kicked it. I thought it was going to be same old same old. They kick as hard as they can I catch, but no. It happened a little like this. They faked right, went left. The weaker side is left because not a lot of people kick left footed. I saw the girl do a simple pullback with the ball; hit it with her heel and go. She shoots, //then//, I catch. We weren’t having a shut out like we’d hoped. But I still think that we could be playing a lot better. I feel that we are better than this, and we are not showing how much potential we have. Now it was half time and I was not about to lie to my team mates. That team wasn't good, they were great. We were too, but the way we were playing, we looked like a bunch of rotted out bananas. When really, are team had the potential to beat any team that stepped on that field, if we played as hard as we could. We’re a team we needed to start playing like one. "Don't let down, their only two points ahead," said my coach. So I went out there and gave it my all.

Now I had grass stains on my knees, I was so sweaty, I felt like a grease monkey. It was scalding out. It was like the temperature went up one hundred degrees in five minutes. Also I had a stench like I hadn't taken a bath in a whole year. One of my team mates got a yellow card for being a little //too// aggressive. So it was a penalty kick. Just me, the ball, and one enormous girl. I swear this girl is as big as my dad, he’s six foot six! She ran toward the ball, I Jumped and almost missed, but caught the ball at its highest point. Now the ball was in my hands, I drop it and kick. Like an airplane it starts out low and eventually gets higher. Now it just soars through the air like a bird. Then like a lightning bolt it fell. With a great bounce it hit and rose to our team’s forward half back and... SCORE!

I did not think that to be possible, but if I were to add just a little more power on the end of the ball it would have been automatically in the goal. That day everyone was jumping and screaming but not my dad, no, he had the air horn making such a loud noise I thought my eardrum was going to break. My mom was screaming like a mad woman. I think that day was one of the best soccer games of my life.

We had just won our first game. What a great way to start the season. Now I don't // think // it was the best soccer game of the season, I know it.