The Finals…A Seton Parent Perspective.

Heartbreaking! Yes, you may as well know Seton lost 3-2. The first half with a few exceptions we looked tired. I think the Semifinal last night really took it out of us across the board. Our passing was not precise leading to quick counter-attacks and well … we looked just a step slower. We kept playing long balls and our game throughout the season has been a possession-based passing attack. We weren’t ourselves. That was the negative.

That said we had moments of brilliance. 5 minutes in I think it was Kevin Orellana takes a shot which deflects off the goalie and my son runs in and scores off the deflection. But wait – he is called offsides! I do not understand the call at all, no one around me seemed to either. It deflected off the goalie, my son was behind the ball and scored…do not understand. Anyway – this call changed the entire 1st half and ultimately the outcome of the game.

Covenant is a counterattacking team - they are fast everywhere and great passers. Our lack of precision in passing and their renewed energy derived from that call led to 2 quick counterattacking goals and a third quickly in the second half.

The coaches put in Shane Koehr upfront and I have to say while Shane does not play as a starter, his enthusiasm and persistence and constant running pestering the opposition injected some much-needed life into our team. Suddenly we were making a push. It also looked like the Seton Coaches pushed John Paul to D mid and he also came alive in the attack.  A corner kick led to an own goal by Covenant and suddenly we were alive.

Off a set-piece, Josh Atkinson laid in a beautiful ball and Andrew Nguyen who can out-jump anyone on that field put a head on it and we are suddenly 3-2 with 5 minutes left.  We kept pushing and pushing but alas we were not able to make the third goal happen (except for the one that got taken away….but I am not bringing that up ??.

A couple of final words - If any team was going to take us to the finals, it was this team. Many of these kids have grown up playing together since they were 8 years old. I have great videos of them as youngsters. So yes the loss was understandably heartbreaking for them…but what an amazing thing getting this far! These kids have memories to last a lifetime and to tell their kids. Very proud of all of them. Most importantly I loved how they handled their loss. It is the impact of the parents and this small but mighty school we call Seton. I saw one player (he will remain nameless so as not to embarrass him) fall on his knees at the whistle, say a prayer, bless himself and then get up and comfort his teammates – that is leadership!! That is what we hope for our children to do cause at the end of the day – this is just a game. And it is a game by which we hope our children learn and practice the cardinal virtues. That is it. That is the only reason any sport is important. I think this is the key lesson to take away. Unfortunately, our society deifies sports. The lesson I saw in that player is what has to be learned by our culture.