Gathering of the Tribes

Last weekend Park City Girl's Lacrosse's JV team participated in the Gathering of the Tribes tournament, and ended up as the champions!

The tournament began on Friday the 13th. Despite the hovering "bad luck" we were all anticipating due to the date, the two games we played that day set an amazing tone for the rest of the weekend. We won our first game and the next one at six. We all played great as a team and it was nice to get comfortable on the field.

One thing interesting about the tournament was that it was held in the Equestrian Center, which was essentially a horse corral. There were two field locations, and we played most of our games at the first. The ground had some green grass spots here and there, but the majority of the field was dust and dry grass, leading to some blinding dust clouds, dirt shoveling (aka ground balls), and dirty uniforms. In addition to the dirt, there were a couple mud puddles here and there, and let me tell you. Lacrosse + mud puddles + white uniforms does not end up well. I took a couple falls and wound up caking my thumb brace with dirt and grass and earning some sick brown smears on the from of my uniform.

The next day turned out just as swell. Our first game was at 11, so we all met at our tent at 10. A couple warm up laps led to dynamic stretching, shuttles, and other routinely drills. During our last part of warm up Kelsey, the head JV coach, decided it would be a good idea to roll a ball in the middle of two lines and have two girls sprint head on towards each other in hopes of getting the ground ball. This didn't go on for long.

I was the second or third person in line, and looking across the field I could see that I would be facing Maddie Hatch, the biggest girl on our team. I didn't think much of it and charged, head down, at the ball. It have no idea why it didn't cross my mind that wow, maybe this isn't such a good idea. Yet we inevitably collided, noses to shoulders, knees to thighs, elbows to stomachs. The first thing I noticed was my bloody nose, and didn't think too much about my pounding head or thigh. I stopped the bloody nose and we headed over to our first game against Olympus.

My thigh kept hurting, and I assumed it was just a bruise. I ignored it for the next couple of games, which was one of the worst things I could have done. We won our two games no problem, and waited to hear if we would be in the finals. The team all headed to kneaders for lunch, which was so good. Oh, did I mention that it was Pi Day? 3/14/15, or 3.1415, which is the first part of Pi. Kneaders was celebrating with $1 slices of Pie, which made my day.

The team after our last game

While waiting for our food we learned that we would be facing Brighton in the championship game! They added up the number of goals against each team and we only had 10! We headed back to the field to watch the boys' game, and I iced my leg when I could. We drove over to the other fields and got ready to warm up. At this point, I could barely walk on my leg. However, I also learned then that Glee Corsetti, my old Juniors coach, was coaching Brighton, the team we would be playing. I decided that this was an incredibly important game and ignored the pain once again. I was fine, I told myself.

The game was rough and Park City played incredibly well, winning 10-6! After a cheer and congratulating the other team, most of the Park City girls went up and mobbed Glee, hugging it out.
Sylar Clarke, who played goalie for the game since our goalie didn't feel well, received MVP of the game. The team got a cool trophy and a board with the bracket on it. We took a team photo for the yearbook with hats on, then some with the trophy and board.

I went to the medics after our photos and she told be I probably have a contusion, which is when the muscle gets hit against the bone really hard, basically a deep bruise. I was relieved, until she told be I would most likely have to spend a week or two off of it. This freaked me out a bit because I was scheduled to leave for JO's in Oregon on Tuesday, which was in three days. When we got back to PC I went to a doctor, got an X-ray, and learned it didn't chip or harm the bone. This mean that if I took care of the bruise (icing, ibuprofen, etc.) I could be back on it in a very short amount of time. Yay!