Midland/Odessa Sockers FC 2–1 The Villages SC**
The Southern Conference semifinal, in Oklahoma City, at three o'clock in the afternoon, on turf.
Our season ended here, a round from a conference final, in the first year this club had a senior team.
Half time: 0–1. The Sockers added a second, and we got one back.
2–1.
Midland/Odessa went on to play host club OKC Energy U23 in the Southern Conference Final the following day.
The match kicked off at 3:00pm in Oklahoma City in late July, on an artificial surface. It was extraordinarily hot, and the turf was hotter.
Some of our players had the cleats begin to separate from their boots. The Sockers came prepared. They had buckets of ice water on the touchline and dipped their cleats in them at every water break and at half time. No buckets for us.
A first-year club travelled eleven hundred miles to a conference semifinal and played it in conditions that were taking its players' boots apart.
Southeast Division champions. A conference semifinal in Oklahoma. And a U.S. Open Cup run that took us to Charleston.
Not a bad first season.
