Safe Arrival and First Win!

The game was a special one. You could tell which team had travelled all day in the first few minutes. LFA struggled on the football turf, especially with a limited warm up due to the high school football practice. Bonita play at pace and really pounced on any sloppy play. Despite some great early saves from Kaelen, we were quickly down 1-0. 

The team dug in and worked super hard. Our game slowly adapted to the slow field and we managed to get a couple of short corners. Still, half time was 1-0 for Bonita. They nearly had it 2-0 when a goal was called back. The second half gave way to a better counter attack for LFA. A short corner had Amy slip a lovely ball to Claire who riffled it at net, only to be deflected... right to Eva, who ripped it past the goalie for her first ever goal in LFA colours. Jess took a lovely feed from Graycen moments later, but it went just wide of the open net... nearly 2-1 LFA. With it still tied 1-1, Bonita countered and off of one of their short corners rang a blistering shot dead on the post. 

Then, late in the fourth quarter, a lovely fast break saw us clip through Bonita with some excellent ball movement started out of the backfield. Amy pressed forward and the ball fell back to Claire who cleverly held off two or three Bonita defenders before a sublime spin and shot for the go ahead goal. In a super close game, some great effort and resiliency was the defining moments of our game.

Bonita then proved the most gracious and generous of hosts. A fabulous pot luck dinner on the field and some shared awards for each team's MVPs. The teams hung out for ages and demonstrated the sort of sportsmanship and interaction that define a great tour experience.