The Agony Of Defeat

Note: There was no Hometown View on Friday, July 15.

It was certainly not the script that was expected to be written, at least not after the dramatic way in which the United States reached the final of the Women’s World Cup in Germany. However on Sunday a very resilient group of Japanese women twice battled back from one goal deficits and then stunned the U.S. in penalty kicks to become the first Asian team to win the World Cup. Even more remarkable was that it was the first time Japan had beaten the American women in 26 tries. Much like the Saints winning the Super Bowl a couple of years ago was great for the city of New Orleans, the victory is meaningful to a country recovering from the tragedy of that earthquake and tsunami months ago.

Certainly for some of those in Point Pleasant & Manasquan the loss is even tougher to accept. That’s because the captain of the U.S. team and America’s premier “soccer mom” in 36-year old Christie Rampone, a former high school star at Point Boro and now resident of the community just north . Rampone is not done yet wearing the red, white and blue as she’ll stay with the team through next summer’s Olympics in London before retiring.

Final thought on this event and to me one of the reason’s soccer is tough for most traditional sports fans to accept in this country. How can you settle the biggest prize in the sport on penalty kicks? Can you imagine a home run derby to decide the 7th game of the World Series, or a free-throw contest in the NBA Finals. When it comes to THE final game for the biggest prize settling it on PK’s is lame.

Congratulations to the Holbrook Little League as they beat Brick 7-4 Sunday to claim the District 18 Little League Championship and will represent the district in the sectionals which start this week. Holbrook becomes the latest Ocean County team with dreams of Williamsport, Pennsylvania in late August.

Over the weekend it was announced that WOBM AM will be the radio home for Monmouth University Men’s Basketball beginning this winter. The school and Millennium Radio reached agreement on a three-year contract to broadcast all the Hawks games as part of our Shore Sports Network. First-year head coach King Rice said the radio deal will help promote not only the basketball program and athletics department but the University was well. WOBM AM is getting ready for its third season of Monmouth football so know we have the Hawks two major programs on our station. Eddy Occhipinti and our own Matt Harmon will be the voices of Hawks basketball…they also handle the football broadcasts.