Soccer season is always so fun and so hard! So busy but I LOVE going to their games. This season was even more hectic because I coached Sadie's team. We had to leave our house at 5 to get to the field, get the goal and balls over to the field and set up, and be ready for practice when the kids got there. Dylan came with us to Sadie's practice and either played with us or read a book. Then once we were done at 6:30, Dylan had practice. So Sadie and I would hang out for another hour waiting for Dylan to be done. We didn't get home until close to 8. That was every Monday. Wednesdays were much the same, only we sat and watched Dylan play instead of going to the park or the car. Sometimes Sadie would catch a ride home with our neighbor whose son was on my team. The weather was pretty bad for a lot of the games, not much fun to sit in if you weren't bundled up. We had games and practice cancelled one week due to so much rain. And another time they tried to cancel the games because of wind. I was irritated and said I would like to play. Luckily the team we were scheduled to play said they would play so we didn't cancel. And the weather was not even bad. For these younger programs, they really focus on developing skills and so the games are not that important. Of course the kids prefer to play games. But I didn't want to cancel a game, and have a make-up game during practice time since we had already missed one practice from rain. And another because of Memorial Day. I wanted to get through as many of the skills as possible. The coaches had a book with exactly what we were supposed to do every week. Down to the minute. It was nice, but sometimes the games they had were not much fun and I would rather play a different game. We improvised a little bit but I tried to stick to the book. Coaching isn't as fun when you have kids saying, "what is the point of this? When will we ever use this in a game?" Umm, trust me? Watch the pros? Whatever. Or when they ask fifty thousand times if we can play sharks and minnows, but they don't want to do the speedwork we are supposed to do before moving on to the fun games. Anyway, I'm glad I could help out since the league needed coaches. And Sadie was not thrilled about playing at all this season until she found out I was coaching her, so that helped. It's not as fun for her because she is a six year old playing with eight year olds. Kindergarteners and second graders are a big difference. Our team kind of rocked, though. We dominated most of the games. Only one team really made us work. A couple other teams were short a player so we had one of our players play on their team and when we did that, we had to work harder. Even having older boys on the team, Sadie did well. She scored a couple goals, but her favorite is defense. Apparently all my kids are going to be defenders...
Dylan is fun to watch! And the most important thing is that he really enjoys it. But I'm frustrated because he keeps ending up on teams with a bunch of kids that don't know what they are doing. Ever since we came to this league that has been the case. Which I guess has only been two seasons. But it feels like a lot. Dylan is quick and fierce. He's solid and unafraid, charging towards people like a bull. But you can tell by watching him that he has been playing soccer for a long time. He is very comfortable with the ball and though he doesn't necessarily have to tricky ball moves, he has great control. He scored a goal or two in a few different games. But his strong area is defense for sure. He understands how to play defender better than most the kids in his league (most the kids in Kylee's too, maybe). Every single time the ball comes down, he steals it, takes it up the sideline to about half field, then boots it to the center of the other side, right where our forward should be. BUT we don't have anyone that knows what they're doing enough to have someone there to get it. So their defenders easily kick it back to our side and Dylan repeats his move. I tell him he should just take it to the goal since there's nobody to pass to. He says, "yeah, but I get too tired." Ugh. That kid needs some endurance. We are working on it. No more letting him get out of shape over the summer and winter months. After one of his games I was telling him how well he is playing and he said, "yeah, but soccer is the only thing I can play that well. I'm not very good at basketball and football I'm only really good at pulling flags." I told him that's just fine if he wants to play soccer year round instead of basketball. I think he might actually really like tackle football, but I'm not going to push him to do that, I'd rather him not. So it sounds like he may do indoor soccer in the winter. And the good news is, I think I found him a coach that he could stay with and be consistent and maybe get a few more good players on their team. Layne McCord coached Kylee indoor two winters ago, and his daughter is on Kylee's team now. He also has a son who is in Dylan's league and he's coaching that team. So I talked to him and he said he would take Dylan. Hopefully this will be good. In the meantime, he did a soccer camp this summer and is doing Grit League and Swim Club, so yeah, he will be in good shape!
Kylee's games were on Thursday evenings and Saturdays. Unfortunately a lot of them were in Pocatello, Rexburg or Rigby. That made for a long night since we had to be there 30 minutes early plus up to an hour of drive time, Cheryl came with me to most of the games once she got back in town for the warm months,
Kylee and Averi have been on the same team since Indoor, and it's the same team Kylee played with in the Fall. It's fun when the girls play together and get used to each other. Kylee has kind of grown into the defender position. Her and Averi and Julia are the three main defenders. And they do a great job. Occasionally Kylee will get out-ran by a forward on the other team and I will tell her she has to be faster. But usually she can keep up and she's a really strong defender. At first I was sad about this because I like watching her score. But since I've gotten to know all the girls on her team, I've grown to appreciate the whole team and not just my player. So I no longer care if the goal is from Kylee or someone else. We have some great strikers on our team. Kylee is not quite as strong at shooting as they are, but she did have a couple really close ones this year. I wish her coach would have them play up a little more instead of having four defenders hanging out on the half field line. Why not two or three? And let some of the faster girls play mid? That bugs me. Especially when we are already losing and we have nothing to lose so we should put all our power up and try to score. But I don't know, I'm not a soccer pro.
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