U13/14 Girls League Director and Spirit Coach Jon Fredrick and his team have a reason to feel proud after coming away with a season-ending playoff win over a very tough team from the Washington DC based club, Soccer on the Hill (SOTH).  At the end of the nine game regular season, Spirit sported a record of 7-0-2, just behind SOTH with a record of 8-0-1.  The two teams had scored the most goals of any two in the league, and also allowed among the fewest, finishing one and two in the SFL’s 22-team Division 2 standings.  A one game head-to-head match would decide the division championship. 

In a back-and-forth game in which BRYC relinquished an early goal but came back to take a 2-1 lead on goals by Christine M. and Josie P.  SOTH tied the match at 2 all but relinquished the lead when Savannah F. put the ball in the back of the net.  Unfortunately they once again tied the score at 3-3 before regulation time ended.  The two teams were incredibly evenly matched on both offense and defense so it came as no surprise that it was going to come down to a penalty kick shootout to decide the winner.  Soccer on the Hill went first on the shootout and scored the first goal but Spirit goaltender Sydney S. dug in and stopped the next four shots.  Meanwhile, Spirit missed its first three PK attempts but made their last two shots to win the game.  It couldn’t have been any more exciting than that.

In other U14 Girls SFL action, Dane Merkel's BRYC3 squad for winning both their games this weekend, defeating Chantilly in the semi-finals and Haymarket in the finals in another PK shootout to win their tournament bracket and, with a final record of 6-1-3, move themselves all the way up to fourth place in the 22-team division.  Jason Stanley's BRYC2 team won their tournament semi-final game against Alexandria (a team they lost to by a score of 4-0 during the season), before falling to Fairfax in the finals of their bracket by a score of 1-0.

Congratulations to all three coaches and their girls for great seasons.