September 7, 2009 - Downingtown, PA

Blessed with perfect weather in the mid-80s all weekend, a few games in rural Lancaster seemed like a great idea for Labor Day weekend. However, in their second full tournament, the Lionville Kixx learned that there are some darned good teams out there! A rough first day was followed by at least some bright spots on Day 2, leading to a third place finish in the Keystone Classic.

Saturday had the Kixx starting off the tournament against the Penn Legacy. The Legacy started the game off with some nifty passing, and fairly early on took a two-goal lead. A tough referee decision robbed the Kixx of a Tristan Hummel goal, and a few seconds later the Legacy netted two successive goals to go up 4-0. The Kixx managed a late goal, but couldn't must anything else, and eventually fell 5-1. The kids took a break for a few hours to get some lunch and enjoy some of the nifty special stuff they had at the tournament. Most of the kids came back to the second game with freshly-polished shoes, courtesy of Volkswagen. A few kids came back with new soccer balls from Angelo's, too.

Game number two was against the Reading Rage, a tough team wearing all red that romped through the tournament, outscoring their opponents 16-1 and winning the championship game 3-2. Lionville didn't far too well, falling 8-0 in a game that didn't have many highlights for our boys in blue.

Sunday was an equally beautiful day, and the games started off on a much more positive note. The Kixx came out with a renewed effort, and battled back and forth with the PA Classics for a good 10 minutes before Logan Cattie potted the first goal of the game. Logan scored again, and newcomer Zach DeLone knocked home a late goal for a 3-0 lead. The Kixx held on for the victory, thanks in part to some outstanding goaltending from Daniel Good.

Despite the victory, both the Kixx and the Classics were eliminated from the championship by virtue of their two day 1 losses, so the afternoon was a rematch. Unfortunately, the Classics weren't going to go down without a fight, and scraped their way to a 2-0 lead early on. Late in the game, Daniel Good scored for the good guys, but once again we struggled to get offensive pressure, and eventually lost by a score of 2-1.

Overall, the Kixx played hard. But, it was clear that forwards Daulton Musselman and Charlie Beale were sorely missed, as the Kixx just couldn't seem to get any consistent offensive pressure going. But the coaches all agreed that neither of the first two games were as uneven as the scores indicated. It seemed, for most of the weekend, that every mistake we made was capitalized on, and every mistake they made, we couldn't follow through. Sometimes, soccer is like that, and we're proud of them all for toughing it out! It wasn't all bad, either. It could have been raining!

The Kixx will be back in action this weekend, as the Delco league starts out with a home game against Lower Merion.