An Athlete's POV: The Fight For a Championship

This blog post was written by Derek Sellers, a Power Soccer athlete at Turnstone and a Communications student at the University of Cincinnati.

The U.S. Power Soccer Nationals is always an exciting time for all teams and athletes involved. As a Power Soccer athlete myself, Nationals is one of my favorite times of the year. I am a member of the Turnstone Flyers and I have played for about six years and this was my fifth Nationals. The competition is always intense and gives people with disabilities the opportunity to show their competitive spirit and skills. The tournament ended with the Minnesota Shockwave winning an impressive third straight title. Even though the Shockwave defeated us we had made it to our second Premier Cup National title game in three years. We may have come up short, but we had a very successful season.

We were starting a new season and had our sights set on a championship. Through the season we found ourselves and played well together as a team. When Nationals came around we were undefeated and ready to make a run. After a hard-fought win against RHI Sudden Impact in pool play, we secured the second seed for the tournament. After winning two tournament games we advanced to the finals. We knew it would be hard to win, but we were going into the game with no fear and ready to give the Shockwave our best effort. We made a push and gave the Shockwave a good game but fell short. While we may have been a little disgruntled about the result, we had nothing to be ashamed of as our effort showed placing second in the nation.

At the end of the day, we had a very good season and a lot to be happy with. We worked well together as a team and we fought as hard as we could and gave the best team in the nation a close game. As always the U.S. Power Soccer Nationals was a fun time. After a fun season, I am ready to see what’s in store next season, and hopefully, we can bring home a championship.