The girls finished with a bang in the 2018 NTH Adidas Cup tournament! Four of our five Junior Academy Girls teams qualified for the championship round. Two teams won their finals to finish as champions. One team lost to a sister Junior Academy team. One team has its final canceled due to a schedule revision related to the Saturday afternoon rain storm. (Long story…)

Every team played well! The girls earned lots of respect with their skill, their determination, and their ability to roll with surprises without getting sidetracked.

Thank yous

• We thank coach Hailey, who participated in the tournament as both a coach and a player.
• We also thank guest coaches Emily (“ET”), Nadia and Mike.
• Thanks to all of the girls’ parents (grandparents too) for their enthusiastic support throughout the weekend!
• Special thanks to parents Heather, John and Mindy, who helped us sort out bracketing / standings / schedule questions with the tournament staff.
• Thanks to the tournament staff for helping make our coaching schedule manageable.
• Extra special thanks to Mother Nature, who scared us early in the week with a forecast of rain all week and weekend, but gave us a break and allowed us to play all of our games! We enjoyed the brief Saturday afternoon driving rain storm, but we’re thankful it was a one-off event and not a daily ritual.
• Extra, extra special thanks to the Junior Academy Girls for their joy and enthusiasm!

Photos / videos

• Link:  post-game team photos
• Post-game videos:  coming soon
• Guest submissions:  If you have photos or videos you would like to share, you can upload directly to our photo sharing site via this link:  https://wcs3.smugmug.com/upload/k6gVjM/2018NTHAdidasCup.

Team recaps

Jr Acad team Brian (U8 Blue division, bracket B)

Saturday:

Team Brian aced their Saturday tests, coming away with two wins. They are currently in 1st place in the U8 Blue division “B” bracket, and will advance to the championship with a win Sunday morning. A tie puts them at the mercy of the tie-breakers. A loss may or may not eliminate them, pending results of another game.

Sunday:

Won their final round robin game to qualify for the championship. Beat sister Junior Academy Girls team Campbell in the championship.

Jr Acad team Campbell (U8 Blue division, bracket A)

Saturday:

Team Campbell started with a loss to their sister team Brian, then finished with a win. The tournament web site isn’t clear where they stand overall. It appears they are in 1st place in the U8 Blue division “A” bracket, and will advance to the championship with either a win or a tie Sunday morning.

Sunday:

Had a big come-from-behind tie Sunday morning to advance to the championship. Fell to their red-hot sister Junior Academy Girls team Brian in the championship match.

Jr Acad team Morgan (U8 Gold division, single bracket)

Saturday:

Team Morgan lost their first game, then had a cardiac comeback in their second game to tie in a wild 9-9 result. Team Morgan has a chance of advancing to the championship round; they need a win Sunday morning, plus help in another game. (It’s a small chance, but if you watched Dumb and Dumber, you know a small chance is still a chance!)

Sunday:

Lost a wild one Sunday morning in the final game of round-robin play, and ended up getting eliminated.

Jr Acad team O’Hara (U8 Gold division, single bracket)

Saturday:

Team O’Hara had a win and a loss, and is currently tied for 2nd place in the U8 Gold division. A win Sunday morning vaults O’Hara into the championship match. A tie or loss eliminates them.

Sunday:

Team O’Hara, with guest coach ET, won their morning game to advance to the finals, where they had a rematch against an NTH-Tophat Buckhead team. Team O’Hara won the rematch 8-5 to finish as champions! Special recognition to team O’Hara for making it through a hot weekend with only one substitute, and finding enough energy and determination to bring home a championship!

Jr Acad team Sonnett (U9 Red division, bracket A)

Saturday:

Team Sonnett lost a thriller in their first match, then bounced back with a win in their second match after enduring 10-15 minutes of driving rain. Team Sonnett is currently in 1st place in their bracket and will advance to the championship match with a win or a tie in their Sunday morning game. A loss eliminates them.

Sunday:

Team Sonnett fell behind 2-1 in the first half of a must-win game, but came alive in the second half and scored five unanswered goals to win 6-2 and advance to the championship. It turns out that the U9 Red division schedule was revised overnight due to Saturday afternoon rainouts affecting other teams in the division, and the championship match was canceled. Team Sonnett earned finalist awards behind champions Rome Arsenal, who beat team Sonnett Saturday morning in a 3-2 thriller.

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Sunday schedule

A reminder that girls should arrive 30 minutes before kickoff time for warm-up and team check-in. Team Sonnett may need to start their own warm-up since coaches will be finishing other games on other fields and could be a few minutes late for warm-up.

Day, Date	KO Time	Field	Jr Acad Team	Opponent
Sun, May 20	8:00 AM	UQP 7A	Jr Acad Girls Brian (a)	NTH Pearson Knights
Sun, May 20	9:15 AM	UQP 7B	Jr Acad Girls O’Hara (H)	NTH Tophat 10G White
Sun, May 20	9:15 AM	UQP 8C	Jr Acad Girls Morgan (a)	NTH Tophat 10G Navy
Sun, May 20	9:15 AM	UQP 6	Jr Acad Girls Sonnett (a)	ConFire Central Black
Sun, May 20	11:45 AM	UQP 7B	Jr Acad Girls Campbell (H)	NTH Powers Twisters
Sun, May 20	2:15 PM	UQP 6	Jr Acad Girls Sonnett (H)	potential championship game
Sun, May 20	2:15 PM	UQP 7A	Jr Acad Girls Brian (a)	potential championship game
Sun, May 20	2:15 PM	UQP 7A	Jr Acad Girls Campbell (H)	potential championship game
Sun, May 20	2:15 PM	UQP 7B	Jr Acad Girls Morgan	potential championship game
Sun, May 20	2:15 PM	UQP 7B	Jr Acad Girls O’Hara	potential championship game

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Friday, May 18 update

We wrap up our spring season by playing in the 2018 NTH Adidas Cup tournament. All details are posted here:  www.nasaacademygirls.org/schedules/2018-nth-adidas-cup/. There’s a bunch of stuff there! Here are some key reminders:

Weather updates

• Check the official tournament web site or the NTH field status hot-line: 770-220-4089 or the NTH RainedOut web site. We’ll update our own Junior Academy Girls Twitter account and hot-line when possible, but our Junior Academy channels could lag the official tournament weather communication channels if changes are posted while we’re driving or coaching.

Uniforms

• Check our schedules for home / away indicators. Home teams should wear gold. Away teams should wear navy blue. Girls should bring both uniform sets anyway in case of a uniform surprise. You can store the spare uniform in a zip-lock bag in your daughter’s backpack.

Pre-game warm-ups

• Coaches will be late for warm-ups for most games. Game times are closer together than on our usual game days, and we have games on multiple different fields, so coaches will still be coaching a game when their next game’s warm-up is due to start. So we need to rely on our team captains to get warm-up started on time. Captains are indicated on the team assignments. We suggest a simplified warm-up starting with dribbling marbles, then Texas Draw and dribble, finishing with snow cones. (The captains know what these mean!) If you don’t have access to cones, you can use players’ backpacks to mark an area.

Post-game

• After most games, the coaches will remind the girls of their next game time, field and warm-up captain, and then will zip off to their next games. We won’t do any post-game group chats.

Looking for coach?

• Coaches will be bouncing around various fields, mostly Quest Park 6, 7 or 8. If you’re looking for Ward, here’s his schedule.

Guest coaches

• With 15 (or more) games on our schedule, we have some game time conflicts! We recruited our old friends Emily (“ET”) and Nadia to coach one game each. They will likely be nervous, so a friendly “thanks for helping” from the players could go a long way toward making them feel at ease.

Tournament mindset vs. regular game-day mindset

• The coaches will do their best to treat these games like our other games — no more or less important. But they will be different, because all but two of our games will be against girls who aren’t part of our 40-girl Junior Academy group. This adds a new layer of excitement for most players. The girls will likely wake up excited to play, so we don’t recommend trying to psych them up further on the drive to the fields. Being excited is good, but too much excitement can be counter productive.
• Excitement tends to lead to frantic play, so don’t be surprised if the first 5-10 minutes of the first round games looks like pinball. Past experience tells us the girls will settle in midway through the first half and be fine from there.
• Odds are:  a coach, a parent, or both will do something incredibly “hall of shame” worthy during the course of the tournament. As coaches, we’ll do our best to make sure it isn’t one of us! As a parent, if you remember to be your daughter’s biggest fan, and the other girls’ second biggest fan, you won’t have to worry about becoming crazy story fodder for tournament staff.

Sunday schedule knowns and unknowns

• Teams play twice each Saturday, with a third game Sunday morning. Depending on results of the round-robin games, teams could advance to a championship match Sunday afternoon. We’ll post an update by 7 PM Saturday with the range of possibilities for Sunday’s schedule. We should know the official status of teams Brian, Morgan, O’Hara and Sonnett by 10:30 Sunday morning. We may not know the status of team Campbell until 12:45 PM.