Well, Cougar fans, I'm not gonna lie this is a bit of a tough one to write cause i really want to be writing to you telling that we are on our way to our second NAIA national tournament. But, unfortunately, Notre Dame is, and we should be hanging up the boots for the snowy season and focusing on finals and papers.

And yet another BUT, contrary to belief, we're still not done playing the world's greatest sport. We're busy preparing to head to Geneva, PA, this weekend to play in the NCCAA East Region Tournament.

If you remember back to the video blog my friend Mike and I did a few weeks ago, at some point in time we referenced how ridiculous our conference was shaking out to be, and it turns out that we had a pretty good prediction. Roberts Wesleyan ended up winning the regular season, with Notre Dame, Houghton, ourselves, and Walsh falling in behind. Needless to say, we were pretty pumped to even the score with Walsh after the heartbreaker they threw at us a few weeks ago, and with that game out of the way we headed up to New York to square off with Roberts Wesleyan for the second time this season. 110 minutes later without anybody scoring, we decided to go to "spot shots" or penalty kicks. We were perfect through the first four, and thanks to two misses/saves on their part we were through to the finals to square off with Notre Dame, who pulled a come-from-behind 2-1 victory over Houghton.

I honestly felt like we played great soccer against Notre Dame with a 15-second lapse that resulted in a goal for them. We were unable to get the go ahead goal in the first few minutes prior to their scoring, nor were we able to get the equalizer in the second half. I really don't like losing to NDC in back-to-back AMC Regional Final matches, but there is no denying that they are a great team and will represent the conference well at the next level! (They better, especially after beating us!)

So, like i said, this is the part where most teams begin to pack up and get ready for the off-season, but we're lucky enough to have a second postseason option - one we haven't been to since I was a freshmen - and that is the NCCAA tournament down in Florida! We have to play yet another regional tournament to qualify, and that's where we're headed this weekend! We will play Nyack College on Friday (I'm very excited to see yet another two Eagle players from this summer), and the winner of our game will face off on Saturday against the winner of Roberts Wesleyan (I'm beginning to sense a trend here) and Geneva. Even though it's a Christian tournament and the last shall be first and first shall be last principle is on everyone's mind, we're definitely going for it all this weekend!

We've still got papers to write, tests to take, and stuff to move into a new house (praise the Lord in response to last week's prayer request for my family), but why do all that in Ohio when I can keep kickin' a ball around with 28 of my closest friends in other states?!

Until next time!

P.S. Geneva really isn't that far away. If we qualify for Saturday's game, I hope to see lots of COUGAR CRAZIES there to support and represent!