Good-bye to an era - CU/ CUP
Alyssa has been playing soccer with Cincinnati United since she was five years old. She started in CU's junior's program, then tried out for and made a select CU team when she was a U8 (seven years old), then tried and made CUP (Cincinnati United Premier) when she was a U11 (10 years old) and has been playing on CUP North's top team for two years.
Monday, she accepted an offer from Ohio Elite to play on its ECNL team. Oh man, what have we done? What we've done is move her to Ohio Elite because we believe that's the best club and ECNL is the best league for her to continue to flourish as a soccer player. Change is hard but it helps that Alyssa is 100% behind the change. There is a pretty clear distinction between the philosophies of ECNL and the DA (that which will become CUP's premier team for Alyssa's age group next year). We don't want to go the DA route- whether she would make the DA team or the DA's second team so it makes sense to go to ECNL which plays at a high level. Alyssa understood the differences and agreed with Donnie and me that ECNL will be better for her. Of course there's no way to know for certain but this is a chance we're ready and willing to make.
Alyssa will possess the memories she made at CU/CUP for a long time. And, in case she would ever start to forget, I have pictures to remind her :). She made some good friends at CU/ CUP, became a strong soccer player at CU/ CUP and played for some amazing teams with amazing results. Case in point, her current CUP team is ranked 22nd in the nation for girls select 2006 soccer teams. They won the State Cup and are Ohio South State League champions. The OSSL is the highest league teams can play in for her age group.
In addition, she's played on teams with coaches who have wanderlust so Alyssa has traveled a decent bit for soccer. Her coaches' desire for travel wasn't merely to travel- the idea of traveling out of the region is that you get to play teams whom you don't normally get to play. When she was at CU, she traveled to Gatlinburg, TN and Michigan for tournaments. Since she's been on CUP, she's traveled to Gatlinburg (making it her second time there), St. Louis, Virginia, and the Chicago area. She still has one BIG tournament to play for CUP (soon!) that will require flights to the location. Alyssa has enjoyed her traveling tournaments quite a bit. It's not like she's immersing herself in the culture of the locale when she travels (I mean, she's eating at Subways and staying at DoubleTrees) but traveling still gives her a sense, somewhat, of how vast and topographically diverse our country is.
I'm including a ton of pictures of her throughout the years of her playing for CU/ CUP. I've labeled the year and season and then have pictures from various games throughout that season. I love looking at how much she's changed and grown. Her tenacity has not changed one bit, though. Love watching her play and looking at pictures from throughout the years.
May 2011- Juniors
Blurry pic but including it to show how often she smiled when she played her junior games.
Oct. 2011- Alyssa's last SAY soccer game
So SAY (our town's rec league) has nothing to do with CU except that Alyssa played one season of SAY while also playing CU juniors. The following pictures are from her last SAY game that she played. Alyssa was a very strong rec player and in addition to that, several players on her team were also good. Her team "won" (no one officially "wins" any game) every game. The last game was especially rough for her team's opponents. Alyssa and several other kids were having, let's just say, very good games. Alyssa scored multiple times and stopped the other team from scoring. Basically, her team was successfully giving the other team a butt kickin' and the coach from the other team was not handling the drubbing well. He yelled constantly at his players (who yells at five year olds on a soccer field?) but the yelling was in vain. When the game ended, I looked up and saw the coach from the other team say something to Alyssa. Since the coach did not seem particularity well suited to engage appropriately with five year olds and since Alyssa had played a very prominent roll in his team's ignominious defeat, I was very curious to know what he'd said to her. I asked Alyssa what he said to her and Alyssa replied, "He said, 'Man you're good.'"
Donnie was Alyssa's SAY coach
CU Juniors- Fall- 2012
Donnie was her CU Junior's coach
April 2013- Spring season juniors
Fall 2013- CU Sycamore Mason- Alyssa played on CU's Sycamore Mason's top team. Their name was Ajax. Alyssa was number 8.
Spring 2014- Still on team Ajax
Middletown Spring Blast winners
Donnie wasn't her coach but he helped coach in this tournament since her regular coach couldn't coach it.
Fall 2014- Team Ajax
CU Elite Classic winners
Alyssa and Taylor
Alyssa and Aniyah- the girls don't play together any more. After the age group change, they couldn't. Aniyah is on 05 while Alyssa is an 06. They still keep in touch :). In fact, Aniyah texted Alyssa at 11:30 pm one evening this week to tell Alyssa she'd been offered a spot on the DA team (see, some people like the DA while we don't want it for Alyssa- we are just glad that we have options :)).
Winter 2015- futsal
President's Day 3 v. 3 tournament
Spring 2015- Team Ajax
Mother's Day- Donnie and I bought flowers for all the moms and had the girls give the flowers to their moms after the game.
Fall 2015
CU Elite champs
The girls on her team got to be ball girls for a UC women's soccer game. Here are the players' autographs.
Haunted Classic champs again
Spring 2016- Team Ajax
After the spring season of 2016, Alyssa tried out for CUP and made CUP North 1. The first Cup season was fall of 2016. Alyssa's number was (is) 13.
Spring 2017 CUP
Fall 2017- CUP North 1
Spring 2018- I don't have a single good photo. What??? Yes, it's true. A number of Alyssa's games conflicted with Jacob's games or Abby's dance schedules so I didn't go to nearly all of Alyssa's games. I also take photos of all the girls and post them to a team site so some games I don't get any good ones of Alyssa although I may get some great ones of her teammates. Well, as is obvious from above, I have a great deal of pictures of her playing soccer; one season of sub par/ virtually non existent pictures isn't the end of the world.
I also have a ton more photos of her with her soccer friends over the years. But, I think I've photoed this post enough :). Like I said before, Alyssa has had a lot of good times with her CU/ CUP soccer friends both on and off the field. I'm thankful for how much she's progressed as a soccer player and how she's learned to handle defeats, game pressure, winning graciously, and more. We are excited to see how the next chapter of her youth soccer transpires.
Monday, she accepted an offer from Ohio Elite to play on its ECNL team. Oh man, what have we done? What we've done is move her to Ohio Elite because we believe that's the best club and ECNL is the best league for her to continue to flourish as a soccer player. Change is hard but it helps that Alyssa is 100% behind the change. There is a pretty clear distinction between the philosophies of ECNL and the DA (that which will become CUP's premier team for Alyssa's age group next year). We don't want to go the DA route- whether she would make the DA team or the DA's second team so it makes sense to go to ECNL which plays at a high level. Alyssa understood the differences and agreed with Donnie and me that ECNL will be better for her. Of course there's no way to know for certain but this is a chance we're ready and willing to make.
Alyssa will possess the memories she made at CU/CUP for a long time. And, in case she would ever start to forget, I have pictures to remind her :). She made some good friends at CU/ CUP, became a strong soccer player at CU/ CUP and played for some amazing teams with amazing results. Case in point, her current CUP team is ranked 22nd in the nation for girls select 2006 soccer teams. They won the State Cup and are Ohio South State League champions. The OSSL is the highest league teams can play in for her age group.
In addition, she's played on teams with coaches who have wanderlust so Alyssa has traveled a decent bit for soccer. Her coaches' desire for travel wasn't merely to travel- the idea of traveling out of the region is that you get to play teams whom you don't normally get to play. When she was at CU, she traveled to Gatlinburg, TN and Michigan for tournaments. Since she's been on CUP, she's traveled to Gatlinburg (making it her second time there), St. Louis, Virginia, and the Chicago area. She still has one BIG tournament to play for CUP (soon!) that will require flights to the location. Alyssa has enjoyed her traveling tournaments quite a bit. It's not like she's immersing herself in the culture of the locale when she travels (I mean, she's eating at Subways and staying at DoubleTrees) but traveling still gives her a sense, somewhat, of how vast and topographically diverse our country is.
I'm including a ton of pictures of her throughout the years of her playing for CU/ CUP. I've labeled the year and season and then have pictures from various games throughout that season. I love looking at how much she's changed and grown. Her tenacity has not changed one bit, though. Love watching her play and looking at pictures from throughout the years.
Blurry pic but including it to show how often she smiled when she played her junior games.
Oct. 2011- Alyssa's last SAY soccer game
So SAY (our town's rec league) has nothing to do with CU except that Alyssa played one season of SAY while also playing CU juniors. The following pictures are from her last SAY game that she played. Alyssa was a very strong rec player and in addition to that, several players on her team were also good. Her team "won" (no one officially "wins" any game) every game. The last game was especially rough for her team's opponents. Alyssa and several other kids were having, let's just say, very good games. Alyssa scored multiple times and stopped the other team from scoring. Basically, her team was successfully giving the other team a butt kickin' and the coach from the other team was not handling the drubbing well. He yelled constantly at his players (who yells at five year olds on a soccer field?) but the yelling was in vain. When the game ended, I looked up and saw the coach from the other team say something to Alyssa. Since the coach did not seem particularity well suited to engage appropriately with five year olds and since Alyssa had played a very prominent roll in his team's ignominious defeat, I was very curious to know what he'd said to her. I asked Alyssa what he said to her and Alyssa replied, "He said, 'Man you're good.'"
CU Juniors- Fall- 2012
Donnie was her CU Junior's coach
Fall 2013- CU Sycamore Mason- Alyssa played on CU's Sycamore Mason's top team. Their name was Ajax. Alyssa was number 8.
Middletown Spring Blast winners
Fall 2014- Team Ajax
Alyssa and Taylor
Alyssa and Aniyah- the girls don't play together any more. After the age group change, they couldn't. Aniyah is on 05 while Alyssa is an 06. They still keep in touch :). In fact, Aniyah texted Alyssa at 11:30 pm one evening this week to tell Alyssa she'd been offered a spot on the DA team (see, some people like the DA while we don't want it for Alyssa- we are just glad that we have options :)).
Winter 2015- futsal
President's Day 3 v. 3 tournament
Mother's Day- Donnie and I bought flowers for all the moms and had the girls give the flowers to their moms after the game.
The girls on her team got to be ball girls for a UC women's soccer game. Here are the players' autographs.
Haunted Classic champs again
Spring 2016- Team Ajax
Spring 2018- I don't have a single good photo. What??? Yes, it's true. A number of Alyssa's games conflicted with Jacob's games or Abby's dance schedules so I didn't go to nearly all of Alyssa's games. I also take photos of all the girls and post them to a team site so some games I don't get any good ones of Alyssa although I may get some great ones of her teammates. Well, as is obvious from above, I have a great deal of pictures of her playing soccer; one season of sub par/ virtually non existent pictures isn't the end of the world.
I also have a ton more photos of her with her soccer friends over the years. But, I think I've photoed this post enough :). Like I said before, Alyssa has had a lot of good times with her CU/ CUP soccer friends both on and off the field. I'm thankful for how much she's progressed as a soccer player and how she's learned to handle defeats, game pressure, winning graciously, and more. We are excited to see how the next chapter of her youth soccer transpires.
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