The Brooklyn Odyssey/Varsity Girls Soccer Goes Down to Defeat in the NYSAISAA Quarter-Finals

There was just something a bit strange about the day. It was dark and overcast, and the weatherman was calling for rain sometime in the afternoon. The 2:45pm start time didn't leave much room for error on such a gloomy day, and it was not without some trepidation that I climbed into Mr. Sandoval's SUV for the trip to the Parade Grounds in Brooklyn. While traffic was bad, both teams finally made it to the field. Not so for many of the fans who were caught behind a large accident on the BQE. Yours truly and Mr. Sandoval, along with our enthusiastic passengers, Miss Nugent and Mrs. Reilly, wound our way around the trouble by traveling down the Jackie Robinson Parkway. Now Jackie Robinson was a great ballplayer, and probably the most influential professional athlete of the 20th century, but the parkway named after him doesn't have a great deal of exits. So by the time we were able to get off the JRP, we were at the wrong end of Brooklyn. It took another hour to travel up Atlantic Avenue before we finally found Prospect Park and the Parade Ground Fields. We were disappointed because we knew that we had probably missed at least the first half, but to our surprise, the game hadn't even started yet. There was some problem with the referee assigning by the tournament officials, and NO refs had arrived. There was some talk about moving the game to Queens, to play at a field with some lights, but in the end it was decided that this was not a good plan. So we all climbed back into our cars and headed home to Long Island in the middle of rush hour traffic on a Friday afternoon. The team bus finally pulled into Portledge about 7:00pm, or 7 full hours after it had left, and the girls were told to report back at 10:00am the next morning to try to play this game all over again.

The next day was sunny and beautiful, if a bit windy. Mr. Sandoval and I thought we would give it another try as well and wound up making to the field at Aviator Park in just over 30 minutes. Somehow I wasn't surprised though when the cellphone rang(that would be Mr. Sandoval's cellphone) and the team bus was, amazingly, lost. This was just the weirdest couple of days ever, and definitely was the game that didn't want to be played. Well, my comrade and I climbed into the car and went in search of the bus. About 45 minutes later the bus passed us on Flatbush Avenue and we were able to get them going in the proper direction. Thus, the Varsity Girls Soccer team lined up to start the state tournament game some 25 hours after they had originally boarded a bus for this purpose. These events were some of the strangest things to happen in my 19 years of coaching, and certainly can be called an odyssey.

What Happened When the Game Was Finally Played?

The Portledge girls were determined to make things difficult for the higher seeded, and significantly favored girls from Berkeley Carroll. The Lady Panthers concentrated on defense, but it was not too long before some sloppy defending led to a BC free kick from just outside the penalty area. The BC #9 sent a rocket into the Portledge net and the girls found themselves behind early on. The Portledge players steadied themselves and actually were carrying the play to BC during the late stages of the first half, but, as the mid way whistle sounded our girls still trailed by a score of 1-0.

During the second half the BC defense proved to be too tough for the Portledge attackers to crack, as one Portledge push after another was turned away by some excellent team defending by BC. Finally the eventual counter led to a BC corner that was knocked into the Portledge net after a goal mouth scramble. This second BC goal really took the life out of the Portledge girls and they couldn't muster much of an answer, as a very talented BC team took over the rest of the game. While the girls were very disappointed, they should be quite proud of making a bit of school athletic history by being the first Portledge Varsity Girls Soccer team to make it to the NYSAISAA Tournament. The team gained valuable experience, and with so many returning players the future of girls soccer at Portledge looks very bright. Besides, reflect on Homer Portledge soccer fans, a little odyssey here and there, only makes you stronger!