The Ohio County Lady Eagles' soccer team really angered some folks tonight. They won their first ever district title last week and then beat the same team again for the first ever 3rd Region title. And everyone hates it.
No single team is hated more in their respective sport than Ohio County is in girls' soccer. People pure straight hate them. I thought it was just around here in the 6th district, but when they travel across the state during the summer teams complain about the way they play and generally can't stand them.
The best part about it is that it's so fun to be the bad guys, or girls as the case may be. Everywhere they go people hate on them and they just bop around and have fun. Most of the teams in this soccer district act more like Marines than teenage girls kicking a ball around.
The real reason why everyone hates Ohio County is because they ran over one of the toughest districts in the state and then won the region and made the Sweet 16 state tournament in only it's third season of varsity soccer. You know that you are doing it right when everyone hates you because people don't hate losers, but OC is a little more respected now.
Unfortunately that respect only goes so far. Case in point. All-District team for the regular season consists of 16 girls. There are 3 top 25 teams in this district, but OC was leading the way and was in the top 25 all season whereas the others broke in later.
The All-District team for the regular season saw only 4 OC players and they were the best team in the region and the team that finished 3rd in the district had 7 players. The good news is that the players that were snubbed from OC were voted to the 3rd All-Tournament team and I know that just irks everyone in the district.
The team from the poor rural county bulldozed the 4 city teams out of the district and region and they can't stand it.
I also heard that our local daily newspaper almost didn't even send a photographer down to cover the game. And this bothers me because this story has been creeping up on us for 3 years. The first day that anyone ever covered this team they thought in the back of their mind, if they win and do well, it would be a great story.
A smalltown team starts up with barely enough players to play and then fights tooth and nail in a district where 4 teams are from a single city while OC's soccer field used to be a corn field. Then they jump into this perennially tough district with top 25 teams and in 3 short years they not only win the district but they make the state tournament by winning the region?
It's not rocket science, this is the story and it hasn't ended yet. They just won the single tournament most every school strives to win every single season in every single sport and now they have a state tournament to play in.
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Give credit to Jake Jennings at the M-I. He wrote a good piece. He had a couple small errors in it, but at least it was complimentary. Although he made it sound like OC hung on for dear life. A two goal lead in soccer is not hanging on for dear life.
Congratulations to the girls and to the coaches. I hope people continue to hate fun, exciting, physical, up-tempo soccer. And I hope we continue to be the reason they hate it.
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