Worth The Pain

The epic sports rivalries of Jordan versus Bird, Red Sox versus Yankees, Michigan versus Ohio State will always be debated as to which is the best by sports fans until the end of time, or when beer ceases to exist on the planet (whichever comes first). However in the microcosm of small town sports, there is a new rivalry to be spoken of in the days (not years) to come...the Rochester IBM soccer teams of Cabellon versus Yanes.

First, a little history... I played for Yanes' soccer team for the past two years, but hardly got any playing time. And that was understandable because I've never played the game in my life. However, as the circle of friends grew over time, so did the pressure to form a new team surmount on my shoulders. Along with the defection of myself from Yanes' team, came 4 of my friends. Oops. No hard feelings. We have a (not so) secret nickname for our soccer team, The Darkside.

Tonight was the first ever meeting between our teams. We dealt the first blow taking a 1-0 lead, but not even 10 minutes later they equalized it on broken play. I play goalkeeper for our team, and I deflected their first attempt. But on the rebound of the deflection, one of our defenders made sloppy clear and they put away the second attempt. To make matters worse, I ended up spraining my only good ankle (note: I sprained my other ankle 2 weeks ago playing 21 in basketball...foolish). The pain of having to watch a tight game from the sidelines was almost too much, but I'm sure that was the feeling in my ankles and not my gut. I came back like Rocky versus Ivan Drago in the 2nd half to GK with a 3-1 lead. With 2 useless ankles, I miraculously made save after save. Am I that good? That's for you to decide. We won the game 5-1, and dealt Yanes' team their first loss of the season. The Darkside's record is now 5-2-0. With 3 games to go in the season, the championship is at stake. However, Round 2 of Cabellon versus Yanes is still to be played. Stay tuned.