Freestylin'

As you have probably realized, soccer is probably my favorite sport to watch and play. I have played soccer since I was about six, and have grown to love it since then. I have played rec, travel, varsity, and now intramural and club at Clemson.
My freshman year in high school I tried out for the varsity soccer team. The year before they had won the state title, so I thought it would be a great deal of work just to make the team. Unfortunately, I did not make the final cut, and I was destined to play on the junior varsity team. But, some players had gotten hurt before the season had truly started, and I was lucky enough to be pulled up to the varsity team. I had to prove to everyone that I was deserving of this spot, and worked very hard. In a tournament that my high school hosted, we played for the title against a 4A team (Northwestern), and we were only a 2A team. We should not have been able to beat them, but we were able to pull it out in penalty kicks (which, I had a part in by making one). Northwestern turned out to be the 4A state champions that year, so that win at the beginning of the season was huge. Throughout the season, I started to play a bigger and bigger role, and soon we were on our way to compete for the 2A state championship against Bishop England, a private school down in Charleston. They were a pretty good team, and we led them at half 2-0, but that lead was soon gone after they scored two quick goals in the second half. Then, they scored a third to go up 3-2. I had just finally come in to the game about the time they scored the third goal, but luckily, we were able to score a game-tying goal and force overtime. After another thirty minutes of playing, we had to go to penalty kicks to decide the game. After our first two guys made theirs, and their first guy made his, but the second guy's was saved, it was my turn. As a freshman, in a huge game, I made my PK to put us up 3-1. They made their third kick, and our guy made our fourth. So it was 4-2, and if our goalie saved their fourth kick, we would win. The team got ready to charge our keeper, and as we were all holding each other, we watched the goalie save the fourth kick, so we won the state title!! That was one of the best experiences I have ever had.
Now, I am playing on the club soccer team here at Clemson for my second year, and have been a part of a lot of successes already. The first tournament I played in we won, which was really awesome. Then, we won a tournament down at the University of Florida. The trip back was long, but it was oh so gratifying. I have also been playing intramural soccer since I got to Clemson in the fall of 2006. My freshman year, we had a really good team, and when the playoffs started, we were ranked #1 out of all the teams playing soccer. The really neat thing was that most of our team were made up of free agents, and people I had never met until our first game. We really came together well and were a pretty good team. Unfortunately, we lost in the quarterfinals to a pretty good team that had a lot of foreign players who were very skilled, so it was not too bad of a loss. Last year, we had a lot of the same players back, and after losing our first game, we won the rest of them by 1 goal, every game. We made it to the final game, which, fittingly, we won 1-0. It was such an awesome experience and win, and hopefully we can repeat that performance this year.
Well, I think that's about it for all the exciting soccer in my life...so far.