“Mom, I want you to keep yourself in your seat from now on!” my son Chris instructed as he got into the van grinning after the bus ride home.

“I’m sorry, Chris,” I offered, “I’ll try not to do that again. I just got a little carried away cheering, I guess.”

“You were the loudest one there,” Jeff added.

They were absolutely correct. Usually I’m the mom who sits on the sidelines encouraging the team to communicate with each other and clapping and cheering when they make good plays. This time, however, I had allowed my excitement and enthusiasm to chase reason out the window.

We’d made the trek to Russellville to watch an important GHS soccer game; if we won that game, we would have only one more opponent between our team and the Class A State Soccer Tournament.

We are a young team, made up of mostly freshmen and sophomores, with a few juniors and only one senior. Although I’m not sure about their ages, those big ol’ Russellville boys towered head and shoulders above our guys. To add to their size, they were aggressive and just plain rough. Throughout the entire game they threw elbows, pushed and tripped our boys — and the refs let them get away with most of it.

After we tied the game at 3 early in the second half, the physical contact on the field escalated and the anxiety on the sideline intensified.

At first I found myself pacing when I disagreed with a call, even when Russellville’s goalkeeper got away with coming out of the box and knocking one of our forwards flat on the ground.

A couple of plays later, though, the ref called a foul against us — for contact that couldn’t hold a candle to the keeper’s pancake-making attack on our guy just minutes before.

“Oh my goodness!” I yelled in my most fierce soccer mom voice. “You can’t call that after what happened on the other end! You gotta call it both ways!”

I’m not sure what else I said, but when I finished talking I noticed myself standing only a foot or two from the edge of the field.

We finally scored the winning goal in the second overtime, securing the right to play Owensboro Catholic this coming Saturday to earn a trip to Class A State next month.

As I congratulated the boys after the game, most of them found a way to tease me for getting so worked up and yelling so loudly. One of the coaches even asked if I wanted a jersey so I could just suit up for the next game.

If you come out to the soccer complex to watch them play Owensboro Catholic this Saturday, you’ll probably hear me yelling for our team. But if I want to stay out of trouble with my son and husband, I think I’d better do my cheering in my seat — a safe distance away from the field.

Contact Alisa Maysey at alisamaysey@yahoo.com.