Kick me.

If you consider yourself a soccer purist you will want to do just that once you read the next sentence.

I like shootouts.

If that makes me an ugly American, a typically impatient male, a shallow example of the instant-gratification society in which we live, or, insult of insults, a football fan, well then so be it.

Normally, I hate cell phones almost as much as I love soccer shootouts. Tuesday evening was an exception to that rule because without word of an impending shootout making it from the soccer field to the softball diamond at Free State via cell phone, I never would have taken in my first soccer action since moving to Lawrence.

After watching Maggie Hull (3-for-3 in a 3-1 victory over Topeka High) show why she’s such a tough out in the Firebirds’ softball team’s second victory of the day, witnessing her twin sister, Rosie, execute a bunt double and catching Catherine Smith, Lexi Smith and Allie Hock team on a nifty pitcher-to-third-to-catcher putout, it was time to leave in the sixth inning to catch the exciting finish to the girls soccer game.

Leading up to the penalty-kick contest, Lawrence High and Free State played 110 scoreless minutes. I missed all that and arrived a couple of minutes before the beginning of the shootout, time enough for Free State basketball coach Chuck Law to explain the rules: The winner of a coin toss decides whether to go first or second. The first round of a shootout consists of five different players from each team shooting a penalty kick against a goalie. They alternate shots. If that doesn’t decide it, five new players from each team kick in the second round. The winner of the shootout gets one goal added to its final score.

Pressure. Drama. Tears on one side. Hugs on the other. Not an ounce of soccer knowledge required to understand it and enjoy watching it, yet hate having to see one team lose.

Lawrence High won, 1-0, based on making two of its first four penalty kicks. Free State did not make any, so the fifth kick was not necessary since the Lions already had clinched the victory.

LHS coach Matt Anderson explained the strategy involved in selecting the order of the girls kicking.

“You want to get the lefty first,” Anderson said. “That’s for psyche-out reasons. The goalie’s not really thinking a lefty’s going to go out there, so that kind of changes the way the goalie thinks.”

Madison Bertrand kicked it in with her left foot.

Kicking from the cleanup position (forgive the baseball term), sophomore Stefanie Stuever put it in the upper left-hand corner of the net, a place no goalie could reach.

“I looked into the right corner and passed it into the left corner,” she said. “I always try to pass it into the opposite corner I look.”

Stuever must have noticed the bewildered expression. Pass? Isn’t it a shot?

“Actually, the referee, Riny de Boer, my premier coach, told us in the fourth grade to pass it in there to be accurate, instead of trying to just kick it as hard as you can,” Stuever said.

Her smile lit up the gathering dusk.

“I have lots of friends on Free State,” she said. “They gave us nothing short of a fight.”

A fight decided by a shootout. What a cool rule.