Cpher: After about 6 or 7 practices, Cpher suited up and headed out for his first lacrosse game on Monday night. As penance for the beautiful March, it’s cloudy, it’s cold, and the wind is hitting gusts of up near 40-50 mph.
didn’t want to take this photo, didn’t want his friends seeing this photo being taken, FORBID us to post it on facebook…..sigh.
Our only other lacrosse experience is with Kevin, so, there will be a lot of compare-and-contrast here but let’s remind everyone….year 1 for Kevin he might have been 4’-9’ and might have been 80 lbs. Cpher is every inch of 5-5” (and might be 5-6”) and up near 140 now. So, the approach is going to be, well, just a little different.
Kevin played midfield and attack; Cpher will play defense and will be lucky or surprised to be playing some other position. The part that Kevin hated the most was the hittting; I don’t think Cpher relishes the hitting, but, he doesn’t have the fear that Kevin had and is more than willing to participate. From practice, it seems that Cpher is doing just fine with the basic throw-catch-cradle skills that everyone needs to learn and his size is a big help in the inevitable scrum for the ball.
The team is a 5/6 team, so, he’s on the young end of the age group BUT is the 2nd tallest out there. We are a young team (40 kids, 30(?) are fifth graders) and that’s probably going to mean we take our lumps a little bit this year. Because we have such a large team (if they would have known so many fifth graders would come out they would have had two teams) the team is divided into four pods, three pods play each game to try and manage things better.
Cpher is in the light blue Pod; and misses Game 1; we lost 8-3 to Dewitt. Game 2 is tonight against Holt. I think it’s tied 3-3 at the half and we lose 6-3. Cpher played ok in the first half, played about 2-4 minutes in each of the first two quarters and participated; he watched a little too much but when challenged by someone with the ball came out and defended well. I encouraged Cpher a lot before the game to be physical, use his strength to offset the other kid’s speed. Not-so-much in the first half…..still trying to figure out the game, where to be, what to do, etc.
Played two seconds in the third quarter before being yanked off again; Mom not happy about this and it certainly seemed underserved (they scored on a set play, seemed like the coaches wanted to talk/blame the defense but not sure how much was Cpher and Sam’s fault). Wish they would have put the boys back in after the ‘talk’, but, oh well.
Fourth quarter and he rotates back onto the field, Holt is pressuring, Cpher is playing good defense and I don’t know if I can adequately describe what happens next but the short version is that some Holt kid gets absolutely blasted by Cpher. You see Cpher come into the pile, and you see the Holt kid come flying out. The ref nearest to the play doesn’t call anything…the ref 30 yards away (and screened by all of the players!) pulls out his flag and sends Cpher off for a technical violation. He’s banished to the ‘box’ for 30 seconds, and doesn’t come back on the field after that.
Two years of lacrosse for Kevin, he never, never was called for a foul or a penalty. One game and Cpher’s on the board. And quite frankly I’m happy about it; the hit wasn’t dirty (there were kids sent off for slashing or using the stick as a weapon) and as I’ve learned later is a judgment call by the ref…I think the dramatic movement of the Holt kid through the air away from the pile earned Cpher the penalty more than anything else. Kevin called that “air-time”, the time between getting hit and hitting the ground….Cpher definitely gave that kid some “air-time”.
Again, I shouldn’t smile or be happy about it, but, he gave us a little ‘thumbs-up’ sign from the bench afterwards…and his teammates were pretty supportive “Man, you smoked that kid!”….
Oh well, another game on Wednesday. Hope the weather improves!
Matthew: The less said here the better, played the first game of the spring season Sunday and tied 4-4. Possibly the worst game I’ve ever seen Matthew play, just not moving, no hustle, not in the right position. Remember I said he played 58 of 60 minutes in that championship game? He spent more time on the bench in this game than anyone else……and we only had one sub!
For all that, one of our goals was off of a nice free-kick he made to the goal. Just chalk this up to one ugly game….it’s not like he didn’t play well in Ohio and hopefully this won’t carry over to the tournament coming up this weekend.
