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Sidelines Kalani Simpson |
Toughness kicks in
with soccer match
BASEBALL is a simple game. You throw the ball. You catch the ball. You hit the ball. Soccer, then, is an even simpler game.You kick the ball.
But there was more to it last night at the first round of the Western Athletic Conference Tournament, held this year at the Waipio Soccer Peninsula. And the regulars say it's always like this.
There is the holding, and the grabbing, and the bumping and the tagging and the sly elbow and the subtle push. There is the Nike swoosh imprint embedded in reverse on your forehead. There is taking a cleat in the teeth.
Watching last night's game, you couldn't help but think, two words: lacerated kidney.
As Rodney Dangerfield would have said, It's rough out there.
There was Natasha Kai, Hawaii's all-everything superforward. She is brilliant. Of all the people June Jones has compared to Barry Sanders, the one he hasn't yet but should have is Kai. In the open field, she is poetry.
But she takes a beating. She takes a beating the way Shaq takes a beating.
That's the comparison. And the frustration is similar. That's exactly what it looks like.
Try to get it to your scorer down low? OK. Then the defense will counter accordingly.
That's not to say Tulsa, which drew the task of holding back last year's leading goal scorer nationwide, is a bunch of hackers. No.
That's just soccer.
Last night, Tulsa's Susan Day shadowed Kai for most of the game. She was great at it, except that "shadow" would be the wrong word.
At one point she got a yellow card (unnecessary roughness) for taking out UH's Seline Williams.
But Hawaii goes at it, too. The object of the game is to fight for the ball, and Hawaii has Kai, the superstar, and 10 scrappers.
Kimi Tiampo throws a nice shoulder. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
It's a shame the rain stopped. Last night's action would have been great in the mud.
There were moments, though, several of them, that reminded us why the Brazilians call this "the beautiful game" (was it the Brazilians? Somebody said that). Robyn deHay, whom the Star-Bulletin's Al Chase informs me is pretty good, set up a first-half goal that freshman Koren Takeyama finished, and the Rainbow Wahine took a 1-0 lead. Hugs all around.
But the best part was that it turns out even casual sports fans can appreciate this contact sport. It's a simple game, really.
You kick the ball.
Elbows are optional.