Soccer season was from the beginning of September to mid-November. Alex was the head coach of Owen's team, and I helped as assistant coach. It sure seemed like a long season - we were counting down practices and games by mid-October... we had fun though. This was Owen's first season to play, and he did pretty well. He was the team's "best goalie," although they don't have goalies for this age. He preferred to defend, although he did score a goal or two. In fact, there was one game when all of his teammates scored a goal.
The game that was most fun for the players was the one in the mud. There was a big mud hole right in the middle of the field, so most of the boys were camped out in the mud. A few of them didn't want to get dirty at all.
After the last game, we had an end-of-season party. The team got Alex a bobble-head coach trophy. It even looks a bit like him, except for the mustache.
Jared hadn't played soccer for a few years. He has improved a lot since he was watching the birds in U-6 soccer. He is much more aware of what's going on and more aggressive. He had a really good coach, who helped the team make a lot of progress throughout the season. His team didn't quite make the upper pool of play-offs (maybe 12 teams in that one?), but they got 2nd place in a lower pool of six. It turned out to their advantage, since they got a big trophy for 2nd place. (I think only the 1st and 2nd places in the upper bracket got trophies, so if they got out before that, they didn't get anything.) Jared and his team were pretty proud of those trophies (they thought they got 2nd place in the U-9 league). I think Jared wants to play again next year, so at least he enjoyed it. He got to play with several buddies from school, so that was a plus as well.
Nathan also had not played since 2011, but he never looked like he was behind in skills. He was aggressive and played well. He also had a good coach who knew where to play the boys and build on their strengths. Nathan played mid-field most of the season. The highlight of his season was scoring off a corner kick. His coach was happy that someone finally put a body on one of the kicks and knocked it in. We were all very proud of him. His team had enough playing points to make the play-offs, but was disqualified from play-offs since the team (parents) didn't fulfill their referee assignments. It is unfortunate that the kids were punished for something they had no control over. And it wasn't all the parents fault either. One of the designated referees was injured halfway through the season, and the soccer organization wouldn't allow a replacement. Why...? I don't know. Strict rules. Anyway, it was unfortunate because their team was really coming together by the end of the season.
It was fun to watch each of the boys play! Here is Nathan's goal from the corner kick (I wish I hadn't turned off the camera so fast afterwards, because the celebration was amusing.) It's a quick video...
Oh, and that was also the day that Nathan had made a bargain for screen time to play I-pad games, and we agreed to that if he made a goal. I think he may have been more happy about that than actually scoring the goal to tie up the game.
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