Well, this is our fifth year coaching, and another season is over and done with. I coach my oldest son now in U12 and my middle son in U8. I have five years with my eldest, JP, and its my third with my middle son, EC. Both teams were so much fun to coach. We struggled a bit, but we ended up getting so much better these last three weeks that it was amazing. I hated to see it all end.
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U12: We had our last game today, and it was our best game ever. Our season started out strong. Our seeding tournament went awesome. We won two games, tied one, and barely lost one. The bad thing is that they placed us in the second hardest division! It wouldn't have been so bad but we had a few kids out early. Some of those kids are who made the difference in the tournament. We quickly dropped in rankings. I even petitioned to have us moved down a level. One game, we got spanked 8-0! My worst lost ever. We kept at it though. The bad thing is that in this level they keep stats, and have playoffs. The year prior, we were able to get to the championship game, and it went into penalty kicks. Thankfully we got the win.
Well this year just like the last, we quickly dropped down in rankings. We were stuck at 7th out of 8 teams. Towards the end, we even played a player short, and came out with a win! Just barely, but it was a win. We were now in sixth place which does not seem like much but its tough to move up, especially with all the teams scoring so much. This last game was for 5th and 6th place. I never seen our team work this well together. We came out with a 3-0 win! so we moved up two places in two weeks. What was more impressive to me in this final game is that we shut out the other team. Left them at 0! They came close, but those boys hustled like never before to get back down and stop them cold. I'm proud of them also because this was mostly a new team. My usual kids are in sixth grade, but we did not have enough to make a team, so we combined with the fifth graders. It was something different and I welcomed the challenge to gel this into a new team, which I think we accomplished at the end. JP really came through this year. That hard work during the whole summer really showed, and made a big difference.
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U8: This is our boys second year at U8 and we were hoping for a good year. Last year was tough, because I think they placed us with a lot of second year teams when we were a first year team. In the first game, we won 5-0! My son EC scored 3 goals. That was more that last year in the whole season! The next few games were tough. These teams were amazing. They had big kicks, and awesome passing. Nothing our team could not do, but had to really practice hard at it. We lost a few games but kept working hard towards trying to get a win. With coaching both teams, sometimes the times conflict, and can't be at both games, which breaks me. Patty, my wife, usually goes with the U8 team. This year, I had an additional asst coach, Coach Gato. He helped out so much. He usually would take over for when I could not be there. Well on game, I had to be there late, and when I showed up. They were up 3-0. I came in, took over and the other team tied us! I could not believe it. I felt like such a bad luck charm
The boys were more than happy with a tie though. They said "better than losing again!". Well the next game, we won 8-0! EC scored four goals! I could not be at that game though but fortunately we had a parent tape the game for us so I got to see the goals. It was crazy. I was screaming and cheering at home like a looney. Well in this last game, they also worked the best that they ever had. There is no official score keeping at this level, but I told them that this is a championship game. They were pumped. They also had an impressive shut out.
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To both my boys JP and EC, I could not be prouder of both of you. Great job putting in all the hard work. Practicing even when it rained (not like I gave them a choice) and for sticking in there when the games were toughest.
Tomorrow is our End of the Season parties. We came up with some cool surprise for the kids. I'll try and post what it is at a later date.
Thanks for visiting and reading!
JP
MrAfro Gets into the Christmas Spirit
