A brief update post NASC

My mind is still a swirl after this weekend. The MARFU U-23s won the NASC this year, fighting through two incredibly hard games and mounting a somewhat miraculous late game comeback to do it. As I started to think about what to even blog, it occurs to me that I'm really just not ready for that data dump. All sorts of topics come to mind - the criticality of taking points when you can get them (both wins were by only two points), the importance of trusting your team leaders to do most of the actual leading, trusting depth, playing games, and finding the faith to do what appears
impossible. Oh, and while video is effective for statistics and tactics, it's really hard to get a feeling for a teams intensity or physicality. SoCal was INTENSE.

So - let's leave that for now, and in the interest of all the players involved in the championship match, I'll make some corrections to the various accounting that are out there (I may have reported some inaccuracies in my fog of excitement that also resulted in me losing everything that was in my pockets from jumping up and down so high).

The scoring went like this:

SoCal 5 (5-0)
SoCal 5 (10-0)
MARFU 3 (10-3)
SoCal 5 (15-3)
Socal 5 (20-3)
MARFU 5 (20-8)

HALFTIME SCORE - 20-8 Socal
SoCal 5 (25-8)
MARFU 5 (25-13)
MARFU 2 (25-15)
MARFU 5 (25-20)
MARFU 5 (25-25)
MARFU 2 (25-27)

SoCal's try scorers were Kelly Griffin (15) and Alexis (XL) Volen (10)
MARFU's try scorers were Kate Daley (5), Vanesha McGee (5), and Liz Inkellis (10)
MARFU's kicker was Emily Tunney, and accounted for 7 points (1 pk, 2 conversions).

So perhaps tommorrow, maybe I'll blog about something coach-like.

PS - I just received this from the U23 manager .... Congrats to all the players on the NZ list, you guys are going to have the time of your lives!

2007 NEW ZEALAND TOUR PARTICIPANTS:
Ahrendt, Kirsten
Benlian, Amber
Berg, Libby
Boone, Phoebe
Bydwell, Emilie
Daley, Kate
Drey, Kassie
Forestal, Sydney
Goodman-Levy, Dani
Griffin, Kelly
Hughes, Brea
Kohanski, Tess
Lear, Kristy
McBride, Tara
McCarthy, Schmarrah
McCormick, Kati
McCoy, Tiffany
McGee, Vanesha
Potter, Jillion
Reddick, Naima
Schlarb, Elaine
Smit, Melissa
Travers, Jess
Tseng, Jossy
Tunney, Emily
Turley, Shaina
Vargas, Krissy
Villa, Sheri
Wilson, Sarah

Alternates:
Ansel, Tonya
Black, Katy
Crapster-Pregont, Meg
Duggan, Jillian
Mathews, Kara
Volen, Alexis
Worman, Alison