After winning practically all the Mumbai inter school (except the tie-breaker final loss to MIG), the team was looking forward to the Nanded trip (2nd to 7th November) to play the Maharashtra State Level girls under – 17 tournament. Gathering information from the other coaches who had been through these tournaments with their school teams, I knew this was going to be a much tougher challenge than what we had in Mumbai. Some coaches told me, we had little chance, but just go there for the experience. Our average age of the team was 13.5 years, and I too was not expecting much. But, I know my girls well, and I know they will not go down without a fight.
Our journey to Nanded, by train was not very comfortable, though we had reserved and confirmed tickets, but we knew these trips have these problems. The cold as we approached Nanded was also something we did not expect so early in winter. Our visit to the ground where the tournament was to be held was neither pleasing. It was a mud ground with no grass, unrolled, uneven, and we did expect the ball to behave nasty on this ground. But our stay at the GURUDWARA was a comfy and enjoyable one.
Our 1st game – quarter finals – against the fit Nashik side was going to be a tough one. I don’t think the locals looking at our teeny girls gave us a chance. The first few minutes was totally midfield play, But after we scored the 1st goal (pallavi scored), it was back to dominant ways. Sneha scored the goal of the tournament beating 5 players before slotting the ball home, and Aradhana scored another beauty, beating a defender and slamming an unstoppable shot to score the third. The fourth goal was the perfect short corner, with Pallavi scoring with a lovely deflection to the roof of the net, which even an international player would be proud of. It was our 1st outstation game and a memorable one.
The semifinal started on a bad note with our goalkeeper running a temperature and a couple of players down with mild fever too. But, our girls played their hearts out against a very skillful and talented pune team. We did miss a couple of chances, while pune entered the D on two occasions and made both count. We lost 2 nil, but made a lot of friends with our performance.
Third place match was against a sturdy Amravati team. Though we had a better share of the exchanges, hit the post and was denied a penalty stroke by the Umpire, we beat them in the tie-breaker, with Deepika pulling off a good save, and our girls scoring off all their strokes.
The Icing on the cake was Nisha Mahadik being selected to represent Maharashtra team at the All India DSO tournament in Meerut next month.
I was extremely happy with the way the team performed on our first outstation tournament. We made a lot of friends with the way the team performed, and have got invites to play local tournaments for girls in various places. There is scope for a lot of improvement in the way the team plays. But if they continue to develop and learn from their mistakes, this team will surely do much better next year. They are very knowledgeable girls, they have the desire to learn and to do well, and overall they are very disciplined lot, that’s the reason to the wave of success we are riding on.
Fr. Milton and Sr. Philomena, thank you very much for permitting us to go for this tournament, The teachers and the clerical staff cannot be forgotten for their assistance. The role played by Bosco, in guiding and helping through this trip and the coaching cannot be overlooked. And a big thank you to the 2 parents who accompanied us Mrs. Anita Dhaniwale and Mrs. Shobha Mahadik, they were of great help. Overall, this team effort has made this a trip to cherish, and am looking forward to many more such trips along with this talented bunch of kids. They have made the school and Mumbai proud with their performance. Way to go Elysians !!!!!!!
