Malia Arrant and Jimmy Dunn agreed that the results weren\u2019t exactly what they wanted.<\/p>\n
But the experience certainly was.<\/p>\n
Their teams \u2013 Arrant\u2019s Dosveedanya 93 Red girls, and Dunn\u2019s South County Futbol Club Fury boys \u2013 returned home from Virginia last week after playing three games apiece in the U.S. Club Soccer National Cup tournament. Both sides are part of their respective top-level select clubs in the Kent Youth Soccer Association.<\/p>\n
Dosveedanya came home with a 1-1-1 record in U-14 Super Division play, bouncing back from a first-round loss (2-1 to Michigan Rush NIke) to earn a victory (2-0 against the Eastern FC Cheetahs of Connecticut) and a tie (1-1 against Fort Worth FC).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe competition was good \u2013 we hadn\u2019t played teams from that far out of state before,\u201d Arrant said. \u201cIt was nice to see that we can compete with teams from out of state.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Fury boys had some rough going, falling 2-0 to Davis Legacy SC International of Northern California, 2-0 to Team America FC of Virginia, and 2-0 to Middlepath United FC of New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had our chances. We had a corner kick in one game where we had five chances (to score) \u2013 it just didn\u2019t fall for us,\u201d said Dunn, whose team competed in the U-14 Premier Division. \u201cThe difference between the caliber of play at regionals (in Boise, which the Fury won to qualify for the National Cup) and nationals was a quantum leap. We need to get used to that \u2013 the improved standard of play individually and collectively, we needed that experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dosveedanya\u2019s girls nearly had a victory in its opener, clinging to a 1-0 lead for most of the game. But Michigan tied it with five minutes left, then scored on a free kick with about 45 seconds remaining to win it.<\/p>\n
The Kent crew came back to blank their Connecticut counterparts the next day, with Sarah Bindl earning the shutout in goal. The following day against Fort Worth \u2013 the third straight day of 90-degree heat, according to Arrant \u2013 Dosveedanya hung on for the tie.<\/p>\n
The Federal Way Reign 93 Purple, which also was part of the six-team bracket, came home with the crown.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were one of the better teams there hoping to win it,\u201d said Arrant, whose team arrived home about 2 a.m. last Wednesday morning after a flight delay, then proceeded to go 2-0-1 over the next two days in the Washington Games Soccer Showcase at Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have that national experience. But next year, we\u2019ll do better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dunn took a similar stance with his crew.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing that I tried to make clear to them after the dust had settled was it\u2019s not the final destination, it\u2019s part of the journey,\u201d Dunn said. \u201cThe momentary disappointment of the results isn\u2019t final \u2013 or fatal. There\u2019s a lot of good teams that didn\u2019t make it to nationals \u2013 and we finished fourth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Malia Arrant and Jimmy Dunn agreed that the results weren\u2019t exactly what they wanted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-19794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19794"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19794"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}