kodiak

On to Nationals

Sorry I have been so late in updating, but it has been a busy couple of weeks.

Mission traveled to bend Oregon this past weekend (April 21 and 22) to play in the Pacific Coast Championship. All in all it was a good trip, and the short story is that we have advanced to the next round in South Carolina on May 11 and 12. No for the longer version…

We all flew from SFO Friday morning into Portland airport and then rented a few vans to get the rest of the way to Bend. It is about a 3 hour drive, and to my surprise it did not rain- very un-Oregon. We got in to town, had some dinner and went out that night in Bend. It is a good little town and has definitely grown up over the last few years.

The first game we played against the Arizona Union champs, Camelback. The game went as expected with Mission winning 50-15. Camelback played well, but was pretty well out matched by both our forwards and backs. The only other thing to mention is that I broke my nose about fivee minutes after I came on the field late in the first half. I guess I was due, this in the first time I have broken it. It is not that bad, and I played out the rest of the game. No guts, no glory.

That night I met up with my parents, who had driven down from Portland for the weekend to watch the games. That brought the total number of Mission fans up to three. I guess the defending National Champs are not much of a draw. :-)

The game the next day was, for better or worse, much more interesting…

Due to my nose and general lack of ability to breath through it, I sat out the second game. We played the winner from the second first day game, Bend. Yup home town, home field, and as it turned out- home referee. The officiating in the best case was strict, and in the worst case slanted. The official handed out 35 penalties during the match- that works out to roughly one every two minutes. 23 against Mission, 12 against Bend. And Bend to their credit made us pay dearly for those penalties. Their fullback was dead one with is penalty kicks, converting pretty much every infringement on our half of the field into 3 points.

At halftime we held a 17-12 lead, having scored three tries and converting one of them. Bend had not even seen the try line, but was still very much in the game. during the second half it was more of the same- penalty, penalty penalty. The most controversial of which resulted in the awarding of a penalty try. This is only the second penalty try I have ever seen awarded. Once in college, never internationally and now this one. They tend to stick in your mind.

With ten minutes to go in the game, Mission was down 11 points and needed to get something going. We made a few substitutions to put fresh legs on the field and had at it. Paul, one of our first year players, made a great move to the outside after taking a pop kick from the center and then proceeded to run through two or three defenders for a try. We did not successfully convert the kick after though. This made it a six point deficit with about 5 minutes left. After a few more phases of play Mission made anther charge at the try line, again with Paul breaking through and then feeding the ball to Pila, our inside center. Pila faked a pop kick and ran through to the outside corner for another try. At this point time had expired. Arcia lined up the kick after and knocked the ball through- barely. It hit the cross bar and far upright on its way over. And that was the end of it. Mission won by a single point on the last play of the game.

They don’t put an asterisk next to the ‘W’ for barely winning, nor do they put one for getting robbed. We are the number one seed in the nation heading to South Carolina, and unfortunately that means Bend will be in another bracket. If we do get to face them again it will be in the National Championship game, and part of me hopes they make it. You see, Mission crushed Bend last year 70-0 to advance to Nationals, and well, we are pretty confident we can do it again- even with a referee that seems set on a different outcome.

We always joke as a team that it is “us against the world”, and that is often not the case, but sometimes you do have to wonder…