Caption: The Varsity Sports Team poses at the NR Resort at the beginning of one of their tournament games. [Susana Okada]
by Catarina Hara w/ Isabella Lázaro
Since the beginning of the season this year, the PACA girls soccer has been preparing themselves for the AASB varsity tournament at NR. This tournament, which takes place at the NR Resort in Santo Antônio do Pinhal is a place where athletes from all over Brazil come to compete for trophies and medals in the season’s sports. This tournament focused on basketball, cheerleading and soccer.
Coach Fabio is helping the girls this whole season to develop their skills and abilities in the field. With the tournament at the forefront of their minds, the athletes used their time to practice their performance and team wor k on field.
Video production by Isabella Lázaro
During the first game, these efforts showed as they were able to compete against EAB (Escola Americana Brasilia) and tied 1:1. The second day of games proved more challenging. They faced OLM (Our Lady of Mercy) school in Rio de Janeiro and lost 0:1, but they were able to make a comeback and win their second game against EAR (Escola Americana Recife) with a score of 1:0.
This set them up well for a successful day of games on Friday. They started off with an early morning game against EABH (Escolar American Belo Horizonte) at 8:00am. They were able to claim a decisive victory of 3:1. They went on to play against Sant’anna and won that game 1:0. Their final game on Saturday was against EAR again in the Division 2 final.
“It was really good,” said Melissa Hatcher, a striker for the Varsity girls team, about her experiences at NR. “I loved playing for my team. One thing I really liked was playing, because that is what I went there for.”
In this final game of the tournament, the EAR team got the upper hand and scored one goal which gave them the victory at the end of the game against PACA (0:1).
“It was very fun to watch the girls play,” said Liv Schimenes, a member of the team who was only able to watch the games from the sidelines due to a knee injury. “They played really well, even though we didn’t get the results we wanted. Looking at the girls, always passing the ball, making extra passes instead of themselves kicking to the goal and scoring…which I think was very beautiful and inspiring to show teamwork.”
Nevertheless, the Varsity Girls Soccer team did receive the Division 3: 2nd place award and brought home some shiny silver metals
The PACA Warriors have good expectations for this NR.The Varsity girls believe they have a really strong team in which the new athletes from ninth grade have blended in well with the more seasoned players.
One ninth grade team member, Anita Okada, shared her feelings going into the tournament.
“We [had] high expectations for this NR, and we hope we can get something, because our team has been preparing themselves since the start of the season,” said Okada, “and we also have in mind that winning or losing we need to glorify God, above all things.”
Although the girls did not come home with the highest trophy for the NR tournament, there is a lot of excitement building as they will now focus their attention on preparing for the next game, which is the semifinal game of the SPHSL games. They play against Chapel in a home game on Tuesday, November 10.
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