Carolina Winter League, Finals: The Golden Ghouls Win the First Season

Events & Recaps

Apr 13

Finals day of the Carolina Winter League landed on April 12, the makeup date the league picked back in January. It was sunny and in the upper 70s again at Gateway Park. The top two seeds got byes into the semifinals, and everyone else played their way in.

Most of our WTFNB players and supporters.

Results

The Golden Ghouls came in as the 3 seed and won three straight to take the title. That’s a long way from their first game of the league, a 14–7 loss to Southeast of Heaven in the Asheville rain. The final was a rematch of Day 2, and this one came down to a single goal.

Awards

Our podium teams each got a traveling trophy to bring back next year.

We awarded three MVPs: Most Valuable C Player to Kevin of Good Luck With That!, Most Valuable B Player to Carter of The Golden Ghouls, and Most Valuable A Player to Sean of The Golden Ghouls.

We also handed out a few superlative awards:

**The Full Send Award** to Kristi, who committed so fully to one shot on goal that she committed to the ground too.

**The Miles for Mallets Award** to Chris (and Kelley), who traveled almost 600 miles to play with his team.

**The Glow-Up Award** to Grayson, who asked the right questions, paid attention, and put in the work to grow.

**El Premio al Espíritu de Bicipolo** to Andres. No matter what was happening, Andres wanted to play.

**The Good Luck Award** to Laura, a good luck charm for her team and a positive presence in this community.

**The Lazarus Award** to Kev, for a game-winning goal that went from a dab to a tap-in to a collected pass to a shot.

Thank You!

This league happened because people stepped outside their role as players. Volunteers across all four days cooked and brought food, showed up early to set up, stayed late to take down, refereed, judged goals, and kept time and score. Thank you to AVL, CLT, and everyone who traveled, played, and trusted a first-year format enough to see it through. We’re glad we did this together, and we’re already thinking about next winter.