It was a bit of a challenging travel day for the boys. Winner of earliest riser must be our own Jake "Tommy Boy" Gave who started the day with a 3:30 am wake-up call so he could pick up his travel partners and make his way to MSP for the 6:30am flight to Atlanta. Unfortunately that early-bird didn't get the worm as due to a weather holding pattern over Atlanta our flight got in late and we missed our connection. Atlanta airport was a mess all day, but the 5 players and 2 parents on that early flight were fortunate enough to get the on the next flight, putting us in Columbia about 1:30pm.
Meanwhile, group number 2, flying through Philly had smooth sailing and arrived Columbia a little before us. By 1:45pm we had just about everyone on the traveling side congregated down in baggage claim sorting out cars, comparing creepy facial hair and stories of in-flight service.
The Hilton Garden Inn was our next destination. Checked in, kicked back for a little bit and met up again at 4pm for a light training session and official team check-in at the pitch. We found out rush-hour does indeed exist in the South, it's even slower and just as frustrating. Not like we weren't already all worked up given the events of the day and lay ahead. Okay, maybe that was just me. I did learn, however, that a fully packed Kia minivan can, in fact, handle a little off-roading and ditch driving.
The Lexington Soccer Complex is a decent facility and the hosts were busy setting things up for the weekend's events as we pulled up. We were directed to the practice pitch where the sweating began. It's a bit toasty down here and the air is a tad thick, so warming up wasn't a problem. The run through was good and the guys are ready to go, nothing too crazy, just enough to shake the travel legs out. The turf is a typical southern mix of decent grass over a slightly sandy, but hard and fast base. Going to be hot and humid in the upper 80s today with T-Storms coming and going, typical southern weather. Not a real concern, the pitches look like they will handle the water well and we've played in it all, so no worries.
The night was necessarily unremarkable....dinner at the Olive Garden where we deftly bypassed the 30min wait by finding the "first come, first serve" tables in the lounge area, nice. Back to the hotel where everyone shut it down in their rooms and retired to a night of much needed sleep.
It should be noted that all of this occurred without Reed, TWatts, English and Will. The first 3 were scattered across our lovely country as they were rerouted at least once, but ultimately had to drive in from Atlanta, putting them here at 11pm. Mr. Will....as of this posting, STILL ISN'T HERE. He's scheduled to arrive around noon, we're keeping our fingers crossed he'll make it on time.
The team had a good breakfast together in the hotel this morning, spirits are high as is our focus on the job to be done. A little more siting around for the next few hours as we're planning on leaving the hotel at 1pm for the pitch.
That's about it for now, look for the realtime match updates as we kick-off at 3:15pm ET. Next post here will be after our victory.
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