The Cardinals won the Under 12 Girls age division championship of the Garland Soccer Association Cup Tournament over the weekend of November 3-4, 2001. The Cardinals ended the preliminary rounds of the tournament with a 2-0-1 record and 21 points. Although the team did not win their bracket, the twenty-one points was good enough for the wild card berth in the semi-finals.

The Cardinals started play with the first game of the day Saturday morning, facing the Division ‘A’ rivals, the Bears. The tough defensive struggle saw only one goal scored early in the second half by Paula Hochleutner. That was the margin of victory as Becky Mantsch, Lauren Farris and Paula Hochleutner anchored a defense that kept the ball on the offensive side of the field most of the game.

The mid-afternoon game scheduled for the Cardinals was postponed until Sunday so the eventual champions had a long break until they were to face the Division ‘B’ Volcanoes. The Cardinals had a sub-par game but were able to come away with a 2-0 victory.

Early Sunday morning, the Cardinals faced their toughest opponent of the tournament, the Division ‘A’ first place team, the X’Treme ’90. Excellent goal tending by Becky Mantsch and a tough defense gave the Cardinals a scoreless tie and enough points to advance to the semi-finals as the wild card team.

The 2:00 p.m. Sunday afternoon semi-final game had the bracket ‘B’ winners against the wild card team. The Division ‘B’ first place team, the FireBirds, had won the bracket the Cardinals were in with victories over the Division ‘B’ teams, the Blaze and the GCA Angels, and a tie with the Division ‘A’ Bears. The Cardinals were obviously drained from their earlier encounter with the X ‘Treme and could only muster a 1 – 0 halftime lead on a goal by Paula Hochleutner. A controversial penalty kick early in the second half knotted the score but served as a wake up call for the wild card team. Soon after, Alicia Cobb put the Cardinals ahead for good with a long shot from outside the penalty area for the 2 – 1 lead. The Cardinals held on for the remaining ten minutes to advance to the finals.

After two Sunday games at the Audubon soccer complex, the Cardinals returned to Winters field #10 for the late afternoon finals. Fully expecting to see the X’Treme ’90 warming up for the last match of the day, everyone was surprised to see the Division ‘B’ Strypers on the field. The Strypers had beaten the X’Treme in a close 1 – 0 game, the first game of the day for the winners while their opponent had already played in one tough game that day.

With two hard-fought games already completed on that Sunday, the Cardinals looked tired during the first half. Excellent defensive work by fullback Alexandra DeSoto, sweeper Stephanie Sixtos and keeper Becky Mantsch kept the Cardinals in the game and were able to rest at half-time with a scoreless tie. Things weren’t looking much better with the start of the second half but midway through the stanza, Jennifer Bartlett put a rebound past the Stryper's goalie to give the champions the lead. The goal ignited the Cardinals and the rest of the game was spent on the Stryper’s side of the field with the Cardinals trying to strengthen that lead. The final score of 1 – 0 brought the Cardinals the championship and qualified the team to move on to the Tournament of Champions in December.

For the tournament, the Cardinals only scored 6 goals in five games, compiling a record of 4 – 0 – 1. The low offensive output was more than enough to carry them through to the championship since the tight defense only allowed a single goal for the five games, and that was from a penalty kick, not scored from the field.