Soccer strangeness: our defenders are scoring!

August 26, 2015

Soccer strangeness: our defenders are scoring!

By the end of today, Jacob and Alyssa combined will have played 6 soccer games in four days.

Alyssa's team played in the CU CUP tournament this past weekend. All of her games were in West Chester. She had two games on Saturday and two games on Sunday. I didn't go to her early Saturday and Sunday games because Abby had dance camp both mornings I needed to be home to run her to and from dance. Alyssa's team won its first game of the tournament against a tough opponent (CU Southeast). Donnie said that Alyssa played really well (at defense where she plays 99% of the time). I was at the second game on Saturday where they played a weaker team (TFA, I think) and won easily. Since her team won both games on Saturday, the team could lose Sunday morning and still make it to the final match. Since the game had no bearing on the outcome of the tournament, Alyssa's coach played kids in different positions than they usually play. As a result of that, Alyssa played outside midfielder and got a nice shot off to SCORE A GOAL! Alyssa being Alyssa, Donnie said that Alyssa didn't appear to be too thrilled to have scored. Our team scored so many points on our opponents that Alyssa's coach had the girls not shoot the ball at all in the second half.

In the final game, Alyssa's team lost. It was ugly! They lost 7-0. The girls played so poorly. Curiously, Alyssa didn't start this game. We think it partially explains our awful start to the game which lead to an awful middle of the game which led to an awful end of the game. So, all in all the tournament was ok- 3 wins and making it to the final was good; Alyssa scoring was good (for us anyway, not sure about for her!!); losing so badly in the final- not good!

Jacob's high school team made its official debut Tuesday evening in Beavercreek. They had played three scrimmages prior to Tuesday but no real games. The game's date and location changed several times (it was supposed to be on Monday but late Sunday found out it was moved to Tuesday). Jacob came home from school on Tuesday to get his soccer gear and eat a bit, but he had to be back at the school at 3:30. The bus was leaving at 4:00 for the 5:30 game. Donnie drove straight from work to B-creek while I left shortly after Alyssa arrived home from school.

Jacob started the game in defense which is the position he played in all of the scrimmages. However, in select soccer, he never played defense so it's kind of strange for us to see him playing defense. Now both of our soccer players are defenders... Donnie thinks Jacob is much better as a midfielder but we don't get to decide these things! Anyway, about the game: Beavercreek was better than we were, period. They were up 3-0 by the half. Jacob didn't start the second half and didn't play too much of it, much to his disappointment. Donnie pointed out to him afterward that there are tons of kids on the team (about 20) so most kids aren't going to play most of the game. Jacob was smarting about being benched for what he considered to be too long. When he came in the game, he came in as a midfielder. With about two minutes left in the game, we had a corner kick. Jacob got past his defender near the goal and when the ball came near him, he took all his frustrations out on the ball... or wanted to show his coach what he could do... or everything came to alignment just for this play and Jacob swiped the ball when it was high in the air near him and the ball sailed in the far post of the goal. GOAL! We were excited that the goal kept his team from being shut out.

Proud of our two defenders (who mostly play defense) who managed to score during the brief time that they were not playing defense!

I only took pictures at one of Alyssa's games over the weekend. I didn't get any pictures of Jacob's game. Here's why: the team mom sent out an email recently asking for a "team photographer" to take pictures during games and post them. I didn't volunteer to be the team photographer for a variety of reasons even though I have a good camera and could do it. No one else volunteered for the position either. So not having a team photographer, I would have felt a little funny whipping out my Nikon with its nice sports lens during the game only to take pictures of only my child. So the Nikon will make its appearance in a few games... when I'm not feeling as self conscious for not volunteering despite having a good camera!

When I downloaded pictures onto the computer, I realized that I had taken some pictures of the scrimmage against Centerville last Thursday. So these below are from Thursday's scrimmage, not last night's game.