While sitting in my office today, one of my players was finishing some quotes he owed me from a previous detention. I asked him if he had brought his jersey back from Thursday's game.
"Yeah, I got it on. I also got on my shorts and my socks."
He then proceeded to pull up his pant leg to reveal that he not only had the socks on but also his SHIN GUARDS! This is a great snapshot of how much our kids want to play soccer! He wore his ENTIRE uniform to school underneath his school uniform! Fitted and committed as we like to say at HOPE.
I laughed hard and long and was unable to find another adult to share the story with (probably because they were all busy teaching).
This time around we got everyone dressed and into our vehicles in record time... all but one. While we were getting into our two vans behind my house our last player ran up saying his jersey was in his other bag locked up in the school. SO, we ran back to the school, he changed, and we ran back to the van. When we got a block away he looked at me and said he was missing a shin guard. We drove back and there it was laying in the grass. Once we got it and him back in the van we were off.
Our directions this time (taken from the school's website and confirmed by their secretary) were spot on. We got to the field with time to warm-up! Our opponent was a very small school and their team featured 1 8th grader, a couple 7th graders and the rest were 6th graders. We spent the entire 1st half on their side of the field but were unable to punch anything through for a score. At half time I had visions of a very frustrating tie dancing through my head. The bright spot of the first half was one 8th grade boy who had been to one practice since deciding after the first week of practice that he did not want to play, but asked back on the team when another 8th grade boy (who made it through 3 weeks of practice before quitting) asked back on. His throw ins (though they need a little work) are a definite weapon as he can throw the ball very fair with pretty decent accuracy. Once he got in the game he sent several throws right into our opponent's box.
In the second half it took us a couple minutes to get rolling, but once we got hot we got going! Our first goal ever was scored by an 8th grader who is new to soccer this year (he said in the van on the way home that he has only watched soccer on TV, never played) and he also scored our second goal ever. He missed a hat trick by a couple feet before I took him out. Another 8th grader added a third goal before a 6th grader had a great rebound goal off of a dropped ball by the keeper and then a fullback (playing about 80 yards out of position) capped off our night with #5.
Our keeper only touched the ball twice and our defense got most of their action at midfield. I imagine that the rest of our opponents will be closer in ability to our first, but for tonight it was nice to score so much and to get a win! (Our kids were pretty jazzed that we lost 5-0 last time and this time we won 5-0, "We raw now," one 8th grade girl told me.) AND we met two of the criteria I set for getting pizza from Coach (either score 3 or more OR hold an opponent to 3 or less).
This time around we got everyone dressed and into our vehicles in record time... all but one. While we were getting into our two vans behind my house our last player ran up saying his jersey was in his other bag locked up in the school. SO, we ran back to the school, he changed, and we ran back to the van. When we got a block away he looked at me and said he was missing a shin guard. We drove back and there it was laying in the grass. Once we got it and him back in the van we were off.
Our directions this time (taken from the school's website and confirmed by their secretary) were spot on. We got to the field with time to warm-up! Our opponent was a very small school and their team featured 1 8th grader, a couple 7th graders and the rest were 6th graders. We spent the entire 1st half on their side of the field but were unable to punch anything through for a score. At half time I had visions of a very frustrating tie dancing through my head. The bright spot of the first half was one 8th grade boy who had been to one practice since deciding after the first week of practice that he did not want to play, but asked back on the team when another 8th grade boy (who made it through 3 weeks of practice before quitting) asked back on. His throw ins (though they need a little work) are a definite weapon as he can throw the ball very fair with pretty decent accuracy. Once he got in the game he sent several throws right into our opponent's box.
In the second half it took us a couple minutes to get rolling, but once we got hot we got going! Our first goal ever was scored by an 8th grader who is new to soccer this year (he said in the van on the way home that he has only watched soccer on TV, never played) and he also scored our second goal ever. He missed a hat trick by a couple feet before I took him out. Another 8th grader added a third goal before a 6th grader had a great rebound goal off of a dropped ball by the keeper and then a fullback (playing about 80 yards out of position) capped off our night with #5.
Our keeper only touched the ball twice and our defense got most of their action at midfield. I imagine that the rest of our opponents will be closer in ability to our first, but for tonight it was nice to score so much and to get a win! (Our kids were pretty jazzed that we lost 5-0 last time and this time we won 5-0, "We raw now," one 8th grade girl told me.) AND we met two of the criteria I set for getting pizza from Coach (either score 3 or more OR hold an opponent to 3 or less).
1 comment:
Congrats, Coach and Team!
Love the new uniforms!
Great color! Great team!
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