Football Season End

 

A little behind here….but the season only ended on Sunday. 

Christopher:  This is only reporting, no picture, no videos.  Team got absolutely hammered on October 14th, lost 44-12 to Dewitt.  Lost the last game of the season 28-16 to Haslett on Sunday.  That game wasn’t as close as the score indicated; we scored on a kickoff return and a long pass; they drove the ball up and down the field on us…..I’d be shocked to learn we had more than two first downs.

Had a talk with Cpher about sustaining his blocks before the last game….thought he did a better job of that and played ok on defense.  Had a crushing block on the kickoff return……I was afraid he was going to get called for a penalty…it was a legal block, but, not really necessary.

Matthew:  Lost the last game of the season to Haslett 16-8. 

There are two ways you can approach playing time in football……we have tried, at least for the first three or four games, to play everyone equally.  As the season went on, a ‘squad’ of the best and biggest players played substantial parts of the back ends of the first and second half after everyone had played their 7 plays mandated by the league.  One group plays offense the first half, one group plays offense the second half.

Other teams keep their best players on the field all the time; on offense and on defense.  They substitute the weaker players for the weaker players to get everyone their seven plays.  Haslett is one of those teams.  I wonder what each approach does for development later on; I’d bet Haslett’s approach chases away a lot of the smaller kids who may grow into bigger kids later.

So anyway….did they win? Yeah, sure.  Were they better than us?  Only because they played their best kids on each and every play.  When we went to putting our best kids on the field a lot, we had a lot of success….

One thing we didn’t have a lot of success on was Matthew’s tight-end-reverse.  They did a good job of stringing the play out and making him go wide….and that’s not going to work for him, he needs to cut back.  The picture above is the first of those plays in the game…he got four or five yards because he cut back up field towards the middle.  Didn’t get the first down….

The weather sucked…..it was cold and very very windy.  Matthew is kicking this extra point with the wind, and you can see in the first shot he’s upright, and planting his left foot and about to swing through.  He may be a smidge to far forward on the plant foot though…..and he ended up flat on his butt.  He did nail the kick though. 

 

Matthew’s defensive play of the game…he’s lined up as the far defensive end here and has come up field and kept his pursuit…they ran a reverse away, and then back at him and because he stayed home he forced the kid to have to cut inside.  The kid fumbled, and Matthew came back to make the recovery.

Matthew’s other good play (there was nothing, nothing, notable on offense).  We came out and attempted an onside kick at the start of the second half.  And Matthew nailed the kick, got the high bounce right before it got to the Haslett kid, and we recovered.

Video of Matthew highlights later, maybe…..

Bass (not the fishing kind)

 

Somewhat unbelievably, I haven't talked about the two newest instruments to appear in the household.  Christopher has completely transitioned from cello to bass; Matthew joined him and started with his bass in 5th grade strings this year.  Cpher is one of two basses in the 6th grade orchestra; Matthew one of four in 5th grade.

Cpher also started lessons this year; he sees his teacher for 30 minutes every Wednesday.  The lessons have been good for him; I think he’s more confident with the instrument after essentially not having used it for 5th grade.

There are a few logistical issues that should be considered:

These are not small instruments:  One good thing is that unlike the viola, Fric and Frac do not have to lug this instrument back and forth to school each day…there are basses at the school that they are allowed to use (for a nominal fee).  But man, getting the bass and Cpher to his lesson is a logistical challenge.  He is in a 3/4 bass; some adults only use 1/2 size basses…..and since really the only room that make sense for these things to be stored is in the basement, it is quite a haul to get the instrument to the car and then from the car to the lesson room.  We’ve learned that the Volt can hold one bass….you need to put the back seats, both of them, all the way forward and rest the bridge of the bass almost up to the elbows of the driver.

Getting both instruments from the house to the auditorium for the concert will be worthy of a post of its own I’m sure.

These are not cheap instruments:  We are renting to own, but, having two of these things in the house forced us to get a rider on our insurance policy specifically for musical instruments. Roughly 3x to 4x the cost of Kevin’s viola….and it’s a nice viola!

But…:  they sound a lot better than the viola in these early stages…not this god-awful squeaking noise from the viola……

I reserve judgment if either of the boys shows any kind of Kevin-level promise as a musician.

One of the downsides of having the basses in the basement is that when Dad wants to go down and watch football, or baseball, or whatever, that the boys, happy to have an audience, look at this as practice time.  It is hard to see the TV with a big ass bass in the way….much less hear the TV.  But the boys sound good…..and seem to enjoy playing the instrument.

End of Fall Season – Soccer

 

Fell behind here….time to catch up.  Sadly, it’s just not a pretty set of games to close out the season.

(All pictures are from the last game, the first-round playoff loss against the Jags)

The last game of the season, again, was indoors against the Jags.  We, as a team, don’t play well at that indoor facility. The field is wider and the turf is not a grass-field turf, it’s like a mat on concrete and the ball rolls super-fast….and I don’t think we play on it enough to take advantage of it or even be comfortable on it. The team we inevitably play there, the Jags….they play there all the time.

The coach made a funny decision to have two kids from the white team play with us…for a roster of 15 kids!  I think he had made a promise to have one of the boys play on the red team at least once this season, and this was the last game, and had to make good.  But that change, and the resulting shuffled line-up, along with the indoor ugliness and some suspect goaltending, and we lose 2-1. 

That means that we get to play the same team in the first round of the playoffs….and we are happy, the game will be outside.

We score first, and are winning 1-0 at the half.  But we give up two goals in the second half, and don’t score any.  And that’s the end of the season.

I’m still a little disgusted at how the season ended….I will maintain that we are better than that.  But losses like this make me reconsider everything and I have to remember that Matthew missed a fair bit of practice because of football.  Can’t be really upset about anything I guess if we can’t have Matthew there for every practice.

But I don’t think Matthew is the problem either.  Some players don’t want to (or can’t) do what the coach wants…every pass with a purpose.  And when we don’t pass with a purpose, the balls from those kids just become turnovers. 

To be completely fair, the Jags 2 goals were pretty decent goals….both off of set pieces (a free kick and a corner), both kicked to the same kid, who headed in both of them.  I think it’s ridiculous that we couldn’t mark him once, and than didn’t do it again for the 2nd goal.  Matthew was quick to point out that he wasn’t on the field for either of those goals…..(and I don’t think that’s a good thing that Matthew was all over that observation…but it is what it is).

Indoor soccer begins in a few weeks…….

Fall

 

I have mentioned, several times, how I think this has been one of the prettiest autumns that I can remember.   The colors were better, they lasted longer, just seemed really vibrant this year.

I grabbed these pictures off of Ashton’s Mom’s Facebook page….she took them while walking around the neighborhood a few weeks back.  I recognize where some of them where ‘snapped’, others are just trees.

I think this is in the new subdivision on the west side of Hulett…

along Hulett…

on Capeside looking towards Hulett…

I think this is back in that new subdivision again….if I’m right, Bennett Woods is back beyond that pond back there…

More from Hulett

Walked through here a thousand times(?).  With wife, boys, dogs.  On bikes, on foot, on bikes with boys on ripsticks, on foot with boys on scooter, on bikes with boys towed behind me….

Looking outside now it’s almost all gone.  And today is the last day of Indian Summer…temperature drops twenty degrees tomorrow and I’m sure it will be sometime before it hits the 70’s again….

Tennis – States: The Videos

 

Realized today we’ve had quite a run of Kevin-posts.  This is probably the second to last Tennis post (I’m thinking there will be one more if my guess about post-season awards is right…), but, we’re two weeks away from the airing of the first quizbusters episode and the the taping of the second episode.  A remarkable run…he’ll fade back to obscurity soon enough!

Anyway, the video of Kevin and Ross at States has uploaded.  You can click on any of the pictures and navigate to the site and watch all of the first match against Carlson and the first set and a little more of the semifinal against Seaholm.  I’ve added direct links to four games from the Carlson match as well….

(First game of the first set.  Carlson serving.   The picture is from the last point of the game….and it’s never a good thing when both players are running backwards to get a ball that has bounced in.  Kevin describes what happens next as skill, I describe it as luck.  Especially where the ball landed on the Carlson side…)

(Last game of the first set; we’re leading 5-3…)

(First game of the second set.  Kevin serving.  If you want to see ugly double-faulting serves there are plenty of other examples to go look at.  Does pretty well here and also hits a lot of pretty decent returns)

(I think I messed up my naming convention….usually I put the score as the game starts in the title of the video clip, but, think I got confused in the second set.  Oh well.  If I’m right, we are up 4-1.  Kevin is serving again)

Kevin Tennis Swag

 

Kevin kept this….the scorecard from the big win last Friday.

You get a medal for winning Districts (Leagues).  You get a medal for making the semi-finals at States (if you get to the finals you get a plaque as I understand it).

Kevin, Fric, and Frac have received medals for various events for a long time….these are the smallest damn medals I have ever seen!  Included the quarter for reference!

Tennis – States

 

(this showed up in the front lawn on Wednesday night….it’s a great thing the booster club does, the varsity players in all the sports get this yard sign.  I’m not sure if Kevin cared about it showing up, but, I was glad to see it)

The team travelled to the Flint area to compete in the State Championships….we spent most of the year ranked #10 in the state; in recent weeks we have moved up to #9.

In each flight there are six seeded teams based on the year’s results.  Because we spent a lot of time switching partners and lineups in doubles, and because, well, we just didn’t play well in the beginning of the year, none of the Okemos flights received any seeds.

The other thing to point out, before we start, is that Midland Dow is the #1 seed in almost all of the flights.  Because we come from the same regional, we can’t be in the same side of the bracket as them.  The end result is that for any of the flights to get to the semi-finals, the boys will have to go through the #2 seed in the quarter-finals.

(Kevin and Ross warming up)

2nd Round:  Kevin/Ross start the day playing Gibraltar Carlson….both teams are unseeded and lost in their respective regional finals.  I looked, but, could find no matches against common opponents. 

They start slow, especially Kevin on his serve.  We break them and go up 1-0.  Kevin serves, and the double faulting disaster from Regionals starts right away…he double faults three times and it’s tied 1-1.  They hold, and we are losing 1-2.  A lot of unforced errors…Kevin is not playing very well.  We break them again, and Ross holds his serve, and we go up 3-2. 

We break them again, and Kevin gets broken again, and it’s 4-3.  Somewhere in here is the ‘get’ that I posted earlier.  Literally the play of the year for Kevin…a lot of great hustle that ends up in the type of shot Ross loves….slow, high, short that he just kills and usually the ball bounces so high it clears the fence that surrounds the court.  We break, and then hold, and go on to win the first set 6-3.

Ashton’s Dad is there watching the match with me….he noted that Kevin, when he had no time to think and just reacted and returned the ball was hitting just great shots.  But any time that Kevin had time to set up and think about the shot….straight into the net or long.

Kevin starts off serving the second set.  And the serving struggles are gone…he’s getting his first serve in and we hold.  1-0.  We break them, and hold, it’s 3-0.  And we cruise to the victory 6-1.

There is video of this match, and I will post it later this week….3 doubles and 4 doubles had been slated to play inside and there are good high vantage points to watch from.

Because it’s raining, all of the flights have come inside to play….it will be a long time before Kevin plays again (first match was at 10…the second one won’t start until close to 5 pm).  And, as a bonus, the next match is against the #2 seed, Forest Hills Northern.

You get team points for each match you win…if you have a bye (as we did, and many others did, as they fit 18 teams into a 32 team bracket) you get two points when you win your first match, one for the match, one for the bye.  Okemos has six flights advance to the quarterfinals…combined with one win in the 1st round, we have 13 team points before the 3rd round starts.

Quarter Finals:  5:30 rolls around…..and Kevin/Ross take the court again to play Northern.  The 2nd round match against Carlson had ended before the Northern 2nd round match did so Kevin/Ross had a chance to watch them….they came away thinking they were beatable….but of course they would think that.

First set:  Starts out great…we break their serve and are up 1-0.  We’re up 2-1.  Kevin serves, and holds, and we break them again!  4-1.  Kevin/Ross are really pumped up; teammates who are watching pretty geeked too!

They serve and hold, and we serve and hold, and it’s 5-2.  Kevin serves again….and serves well, but they break us.  5-3.  then it’s 5-4.  and then 5-5.   And they hold serve and we’re losing 6-5.

 

I understand why these guys are the #2 seed….they are both taller than Kevin and they are uber-aggressive….they come to the net at any and every opportunity.  And I can see how that would mean a whole lot of wins against not so good, and even some good teams.  But Kevin and Ross are strong enough players to just punch every return, as hard as they can, at those two guys at the net.  And more often than not it worked out.  But they adjusted, and roared back, and we were down…..with Kevin serving next.

Kevin holds….it’s 6-6 and we’re off to the tiebreaker.  First ones to 7, win by 5.  I forget the progression of the points, but I know Kevin had a heck of a shot to win it.  We win 7-6 (7-5).  Whew!

Second set:  Starts out not so great….they break Kevin and we go down 0-1.  We’re down 1-2, and then down 2-3….we broke them and Kevin’s double faulting disasters came back to haunt him and they broke back; Kevin double faulted 3 times in that game.  But we hold and break them the next go round; it’s 4-3 us.  We break them, it’s 5-3, and Kevin has several serves for match point but they end up breaking us, and it’s 5-4.

They are serving…..and it’s 15-40….we have two break points for the match.  They hold the first one, it’s 30-40.  The second one is quite a rally, and Kevin finally pushes a return between the two of them at the net and they have to scramble back and barely return it…..and it’s a soft high looping dink back to the net and everyone knows the match is about to end, because Ross just crushes it.  It’s over.

I was asking Kevin later about moments in his life where he’s been that happy…..I’m not sure I could come up with one and he couldn’t think of an event either.  They come off the court, they are hugged by the coach, hugged by their teammates, hugged by their parents.  Just an awesome moment!  I’m sad I wasn’t taping (they were on a court that was you couldn’t tape, but, glad I got to experience the moment like I did.

Sadly, the rest of the team was eliminated by all of those higher seeds…..only Kevin and Ross will play on Saturday.

Semi Finals:  Saturday morning everyone is back inside again, still raining, for the semi-finals.  Suzanne, Fric, and Frac are here to watch Kevin and Ross take on the #6 seed from Birmingham Seaholm.  My description won’t be as detailed here since I don’t have the text records to Suzanne to refresh my memory….

We break them early, and get up 2-1 and 3-2 I think.  But we are not playing well….way too many unforced errors.  It looks like if we could just return the ball they are not good enough to keep up, but, they are a completely different style than Northern and it’s turning into a slog.   Kevin has more of his serving issues, but we hold on to win the first set 6-4.

And it’s all bad after that.  They win the next set 6-2, and win the third set tiebreak 6-1.  We didn’t play as nearly as well as we did on Friday night, and they looked stronger and stronger as those two sets went by. 

Kevin and Ross’s quarterfinal win gave us one more team point….and we finish in 6th.  Given that we were 9th in the rankings, that’s nothing but good.  Even in those quarter final losses many kids said that they played their best match of the year.

The lower half of the bracket…..

All of the pictures are from the final match on Saturday…..I have video of that match too….but really can only see the first set being uploaded. 

Kevin said his goal was to be playing on Saturday, so, even though he was down a little bit on Saturday, he wasn’t really down.  And I told him at dinner Saturday night that to put things in perspective, two months ago out here at BNS I was wondering if Kevin would even make varsity this year.  Never mind States….or the State semi-finals. 

Only four seniors graduate.  Time will tell if Ross and Kevin are paired together next year; Ross was #4 singles last year and there is some thought that he could go back to singles. Kevin is probably locked into #2 doubles next year no matter how the partner thing shakes out. 

Tardy (with a touch of tennis)

 

(I know it’s Sunday when this posts….it should have gone up Friday mid-afternoon)

I’ve fallen behind….will expand on all of this later.

Football:  Matthew lost last game 16-8; Cpher lost 44-12.  Not many highlights on either front.

Soccer:  Won 2-1 without him, lost 2-1 with him.  Not many highlights to report here.

Tennis:  Spending the day today in Flint for the tennis finals….Kevin/Ross won first match against Gibraltar Carlson 6-3, 6-1.  Started ugly, finished on cruise control.

But, there’s this.  Click below.  Kevin, at this point, will call it his play of the year…

3rd Round Match later today.  Against the #2 seed…..

An economic analysis of plug-in hybrid vehicles

 

Since we’re nearing 2000 miles, a nice round number, I decided to pull out the excel spreadsheet and answer for myself the second most asked question we get about the Volt…..”so how much does it cost to operate the Volt on the battery?”

The assumptions:

• We get 40 miles on a charge, or, better said, 40 miles, no matter how we charge the vehicle, is equivalent to the maximum charge it would take to fill up the battery, 12.9 kwH (we hardly ever drain the battery completely, so…..)
• We pay, roughly, $0.11 per kwH consumed in this household.  This is probably on the high end of things….in January/February it will be more like a dime or less…
• We’ll say $3.75 is the average for a gallon of gas over the 10 weeks we’ve had the Volt.

A lot of math later….and converting the dollars spent on electricity miles back to gallons of gas…..we got roughly 100 mpg for the 2000 miles driven to date.

As we always rush to say when asked this question; the Volt is not the only vehicle that consumes miles (and gas) by this family.  But even if we say the Odyssey went 1000 miles in the last 10 weeks and the CR-V went 250 miles….the family is still running at about 70 mpg.

We’ll take that.

The long-awaited 240V charger will be installed today.  Now we can completely charge the Volt in 3 hours, not 15. 

Saturday Sports Desk

 

There are some days that this soccer gig is a little annoying….today was close.  It rained all day, and we had to drive 80 minutes to get to Canton for one game.  And it poured all during the game….

We win 2-0.  We play well, if we could somehow consistently convert on our scoring chances we would be a lot better off…..

On Saturdays we wear white jerseys; there are standing puddles of water on the field, I know that Matthew is not coming home clean.  He played really well, had an assist on the first goal, a sweet one-time cross to the middle of the box that the forward headed in.  And yeah, there’s a lot of brown mud stains on that white jersey right now.

Tomorrow brings two football games and one soccer game…..weather says thunder storms….that could really mess with the schedule!

Tennis – Regionals

 

It was cold and it was windy as the tennis team travelled to East Lansing for regionals…

It started off around 40 degrees and windy, and finished about 60 degrees and really windy. 

Match 1:  Against Owosso….we win 6-0, 6-1.  Not Kevin’s finest moments.  He double faulted.  A lot.  They won the one game because he double faulted every point to them.  Just brutal to watch.

Match 2:  Against East Lansing (again).  we win 7-6 (7-3), 6-3.  Not Kevin’s finest moments.  He double faulted.  A lot.  The one reason that the first set went to tiebreaker was Kevin’s inability to get one of two serves in……

To be fair, he did play well, and I commented to Suzanne often that I am impressed by how much his ground strokes and volleys have improved this year…he does a great job of placing the ball when he returns it and often turns bad situations into good ones that way.

But man, the double-faulting was horrific.  He finally (finally) got his act together and was really hitting his serves in the 2nd set.  It was really windy; a lot of kids struggled with the wind but I don’t think he would use the wind as an excuse (he hasn’t yet) and I don’t think it was the reason…..I don’t know what the reason was. 

Match 3 (Regional Final).  Lost to Dow 6-2, 6-4. The double-faulting was better, but still a big problem…he gave away points to a really good team, and you are not going to beat a really good team handing them extra points. 

Making the regional final ensured that Kevin and Ross will be in the state tournament next week.  I think the whole team qualified too (if you get a certain number of points as a team everyone goes….I think we hit that threshold).

That boy had better spend some quality time over the next week working on his serve!