From The Sports Desk – Waverly Lax Edition

 

Back to back games; a home game against Waverly this evening.  The boys won 6-2.

The next lax post I’ll start with Matthew first, but, we’ll go with the Cpher photos again to start off.

More Cpher photos than Matthew photos again; this is again a reflection of the playing time issues….guess Matthew is going to have to ask to play defense or attack if he wants more time.

I am happy that it took all of about 3 minutes into this game to get a replay of Cpher rushing upfield!  Still, no shot on goal, but, we are working our way there.  Coaches, later in the game, are cautioning him to look for teammates instead of running.  I think the big guy and I have agreed that one rush, with a shot on goal, is enough and good passes after some runs afterwards should be the order of the day….

I do like that he is much more comfortable running with the ball this year.  Last year it was get possession and just heave the ball forward.

Got some good photos of him today too!

I like this one, but, I know that #25 there got by him and had a shot on goal..

They ran four middie lines today (12 kids) and only had 5 kids each on attack and defense.  There’s no way that can ever work out fairly for the middies….and the absence of Matthew from any meaningful minutes was noticeable.

But, Matthew is Matthew.  He battles, he runs, he falls, he hits, he dodges….he never sits back and watches.

He passes…..

But his big brother, with a year more experience, does do a better job of holding onto the ball while running.  I like this picture, with the ball directly over his head after he lost it.

  I know a year of experience under his belt will make a massive difference next year; the kid will be a menace!  Next game Thursday night!

From The Sports Desk – A Long Lacrosse Week Edition

 

Five day week, three games.  Hope the weather holds out.  The first game is against the second of the two Haslett teams.

We lost, 6-5.  Gave up the winning goal with 10 seconds left.  But, a pretty decent game for Fric and Frac; if I had goals for the boys this year, then this game accomplished two of them.

We’ll start with Cpher, since when I import pictures they come in alphabetically..

He played a lot; especially in the first quarter it seemed like he was on the field for 9 out of the 10 minutes.  Picked up his first penalty of the season when he was a little too obvious about the check he was about to make; the ref really had no choice but to call the penalty it was that blatant.

But if I had one goal for Cpher this year it was to scoop up the ball and head upfield; head so far upfield that one of the middies would have to stay back (past the midfield line).  Cpher, in typical Cpher style, is opposed to this plan of mine and says he is content to stay back and hold the fort.  But here, you can see he has the ball and is getting the train in motion….and the coach is telling him to go go GO!

And he’s just about to cross midfield here…you can see Matthew waiting to come on the field on the sideline…and telling his brother to go go GO!

These attackers have to stop chasing Cpher because he has crossed midfield and they can’t.

Carried it at least 2/3 of the field before finally passing the ball off and retreating back to his position.  Told him after the game if you’re going to run that far, you might as well keep going and take a shot…..we’ll see if we get there this year.

For all that Cpher played in the first quarter it was the absolute reverse for Matthew in the first half; might have only been on the field for a minute or two in each quarter.  I know now that it wasn’t by design, but, as we headed out today he was complaining about his leg; the bruises I took a picture of yesterday are very black and blue today and tender to the touch.

But he played a fair bit in the second half and again, more than held his own.  He’s playing middie today (I’ll have to ask him if he is consciously not playing center mid or by assignment…I think he’d be good at faceoffs but hasn’t taken one yet).

And Matthew had the ball quite a bit and made some nice rushes at the goal before passing the ball…

One of the pitfalls of taking photos and video (and I was taking pictures today again) is that you spend so much time looking through the viewfinder and you might miss something.  And these three pictures lead up to something I completely missed; Matthew’s first goal.  Can’t even describe it, I know right after this scrum he picks up the ball and shoots and scores.  But I lost the ball and didn’t see it, or him, until it was too late. 

If there are photos that make memories of their own, that picture of Fric and Frac a few weeks back is one of them, and well, the picture of Kevin after his one and only goal in lacrosse is one too.  So, we wanted to get a picture of Matthew after the game today but well, it just didn’t work out quite the same way.

You can’t have a Frac without a Fric…

The family leaderboard for goals has a tie at the top; Kevin and Matthew with one, this kid still looking to get on the board.  Will be a big event when and if he does…certainly expect Matthew to break that tie sooner rather than later.

From the Sports Desk – Rainy Days Are Awesome Edition

 

So why am I naming the Sports Desk posts now?  Was looking at my blog backups and one of the files said “From The Sports Desk (32)” and realized a) that’s a lot and b) I could do a better job of naming them to keep them different.

For all that yesterday was finally beautiful for soccer, the weather gods took away the sunny warm day that was predicted for Sunday and replaced that great weather with gray skies and a light but persistent rain.  That rain, of course, got harder as the game started.

Should mention here that yesterday and today one of the other center midfielders wasn’t here….pulled his hamstring.  This has meant more playing time for Matthew, a little more, but not a lot more, on Saturday.  Today, it was noticeable….Matthew played a ton.

He earned every minute of his playing time….scored the first goal a few minutes in; tipped in a crossing pass for the goal.  Had an assist on each of the next two goals as we won 5-2.

No video; we don’t tape in the rain.  Only pulled out the camera when the rain slowed down significantly in the second half.  This is right after heading the ball…he did a lot of that today…

I thought Matthew played well yesterday; he played even better today.  When he had the ball, he always seemed in charge of the ball.  Again made a ton of great passes to spring his teammates for shots on goal.  Really liked his first assist; literally took the ball off of the front of his face (not the forehead where he tries to take it, cheeks and nose this time) and didn’t even slow down before he passed it and we scored.  Was rubbing his face quite a bit as he walked back up the field after the goal though!

These pictures, from the header through the end here, are all of the same sequence (I didn’t take many photos because of the rain, but, wanted some for the blog…).  A completely neutral observer noted that Matthew was the best player on the field, and that we looked like a rec team when he wasn’t out there helping to run the show.  Matthew was not on the bench very often this game…

I think Matthew really impressed Mom and Dad late in the game when he ran back over half the field to track down one kid and take the ball….and then did it again to slide tackle their best player and stop another threat.  That slide tackle didn’t seem that bad to me, the ref did not call a foul, but, the other kid did stay down for a bit.

At the end of the game I walk over to get the game reports from the ref.  Usually I try to listen to what Alex is saying to the kids while I wait, but, this time, my concentration drifts as I keep hearing “Matthew” from the other team’s kids.  Turns out that they aren’t very happy with Matthew for that slide tackle…they sound like they tried to get him near the end of the game and it was surprising to me that every kid on that team knew his name!   Ref finishes the paperwork and takes it over to their coach, and their coach starts complaining about the slide tackle! 

I ask the ref when he comes back about it, he said Matthew got the ball, and the asst ref says yeah, clean slide tackle.  And that’s the end of that. 

A pretty dominating performance by number 26 today.

He did take quite a beating; he said most of this came from the slide tackle….a little swelling, but not a lot.  Hope some rest will cure all; there’s a lot of lacrosse on deck next week….

From The Sports Desk – The Beginning Of The End Edition

 

The rains have finally stopped, so, the first outdoor soccer game of the year is on; beautiful and sunny for the trip to Canton.

It’s the beginning of the end edition because these are the last 10 games (or so) with Coach Alex at the helm.  And I’ve been a pretty big supporter of Coach Alex, but, with the realization that he’s leaving, I think I’m ok with that.  I don’t think the kids have grown like they should with him this year and it just seems obvious that at least half the team doesn’t want to listen to what he’s saying….he wants quick smart soccer, we still kick the ball with no purpose way too much.  A change probably make sense for the team and the club.  A change from the club may make sense for Matthew…..

There can be a whole lot of excuses made (we were missing two players, two other players came late after a day of basketball) but the simple fact is we should not lose to this team (we never have) and we did, 3-1.

Talked with Matthew on the long drive down to make sure he remembered the points of emphasis that Alex has that we know about; Matthew dutiful states “play quick smart soccer”….we remind him to play his position and stay in the center.

And I thought the kid played well; lots of balls in the air, some really nice passes (he made three passes that I can remember that set up a teammate one-on-one with the goalie.  No goals).   We had a goal disallowed on a pretty questionable call…..and the team seemed to deflate even further from there.  Five minutes left and Matthew gets a rebound and buries a shot from at least 30 yards out….video below.

Sadly, and this has become a trend, after the game we have to spend ten to fifteen minutes talking about what Coach Alex has said to Matthew.  Matthew really remembers this stuff, and takes it to heart, and I find more and more that I have to constantly remind him that Coach Alex isn’t going to see what he sees on the field and he can and should ignore certain things.

There’s one event in particular I’ll write about here; Matthew has been really good about making runs after making passes, and this time his teammate passes the ball back and at midfield he is breaking in on the goal with just one guy in front of him.  There are no teammates in front of Matthew, there isn’t even a teammate on the same line as him.  I know Matthew, if he had seen someone, or even thought someone was there, he would have passed the ball.  Instead, he ‘meg’d’ the guy, and it went ok, not great, he beat him and then the next pass didn’t work out, and Alex right away is saying that Matthew should have passed the ball sooner.  On the video tape, you can hear me right away saying to Suzanne, “Watch, Alex is going to yell at Matthew for not passing even though there was no one to pass it too”….

Sigh.  9 more games.  Lots of talk about what to do when tryouts roll around in mid-June.  Will have an extensive post on that later I guess….

Quizbusters - Round 3: Kearsley

 

Quizbusters does not have official records; unofficially, the highest score ever is 720 and that was set a long time ago when the competition is not what it is today.  Very rarely will teams get into the 600’s and those games usually are in the first round when random opponents rule the day.

Click on the link to watch the show.  Green Division Quarterfinals.

Let’s talk about Kevin round-by-round:

Quick Ten:  Two for Ten?  Sure….”Around the 18th century BC, who was the legal code-giver of Babylon”  Hammurabi.   “What US State has the largest population?”  California.

Score:  90-0

Tossups Part 1:  Can’t believe my son who has been on such a old-rock kick recently couldn’t get the rock question!  Sigh…

Score:  140-30

Pop Quiz: The letters are t-r-e; Kevin goes  0-3.     Misses ‘trespass’; both miss “tremendous’;  misses ‘tree’.

Score:  210-60

Tossups Part 2: Seems pretty obvious he knew it was Montana, although others knew it too….

Seas of the Middle East and Central Asia:  A Kevin-strength.  Obviously knew all three of these as well..

Score:  310-70

Tossups Part 3: Again, just surprised sometimes at the gaps in the kids knowledge, don’t know the Elton John answer.

and then surprised that Kevin missed the geography question.  Grrrrr.

Score: 410-70

Pop Quiz: The letters are t-e-l; Kevin goes 1-2. Misses “telstar”, misses ‘Tel Aviv”, gets “Teller”.  I seem to recall Kevin being better at these late in the season; it must be after this episode!  Ugh.

Score: 480-110

Tossups Part 4: Have to point out that Christopher, sitting in the audience, loved the question about Louis Sacher because he’s read all of these books in the last year…..and knew the answer the team did not!

Score: 590-110

The Lightning Round:  Nothing.  Zip.  Zilch. 

I thought Kevin fared better in this episode than it turned out that he did.  Oh well….

Spring

 

The scourge of parks everywhere, the Canadian Goose is the sure herald that spring is finally here.  When you see them in pairs hanging around, it most likely means there are some eggs nearby

The view from my office; by the time I went to take the photo the other goose had flown off.  For the first time, ever, these crazy geese decided to lay the eggs behind the house next to us.  Cpher and the gang play back there a lot; we’ve told them that area is off limits for a while.  Nothing is cuter than little goslings walking around, so, we’ll see how this works out.

This big dog just sat and watched the geese; Holly barks and barks and barks (although we did buy a cheap bark collar that works about as well as a cheap bark collar should I guess).  The geese have nothing to fear from the invisibly-fenced springer spaniels.  That big orange cat might cause some issues though.

From the Sports Desk – Rainy Lax Edition

 

I was going to wait to do this later in the week and include tonight’s game, but, after another day of rain and snow, that game is cancelled.  Man, May is going to be a busy month with all of the rescheduling!

We did play on Monday, a 2-1 loss to Holt.  Pretty decent game, especially for it only being our second game (and rain has cancelled a ton of practice!).

The big guy did what the big guy does on defense; both goals against us were when Holt blew by the same defenseman and ran unimpeded to the goal for a shot…

He did seem to have a lot of trouble scooping up the ball this game.  He was more active in trying to do that this game; we had talked that he seemed to be watching a lot last game and he did step it up and get his big body in there today….but not a lot of success getting the ball from the ground into the head of his stick…

One nice acknowledgement of how well he does on defense; when we are a man down this group of coaches pulls a middie out for a defenseman….if Cpher is not on the field at that point he is the choice to go onto the field every time.

No penalties this year yet either; I can’t even remember a foul.  I’m sure they will come though.

This boy moved from middie to attack for this game.  I don’t think he liked it as much, because if the ball went to our side of the field he had to stop at midfield and wait for his teammates to get the ball and come back upfield.

Had one good rush upfield; he gets around this guy

But is taken down by the other guy…..Matthew likes to pass, and does pass, but many of his teammates don’t even consider it, and slowly I’m sure Matthew will stop passing to them and just keep the ball and try to get inside himself.  A little more passing and we could have won this game….

At least the weather turned out nice, probably 55 degrees at the start and sunny all throughout…..No games until next week now though.

The Final Quiz Competition of the School Year

 

States:  I will quote heavily from the press release here “State Quiz Bowl consists of three simultaneously run tournaments: Class A, Class B and Class C/D. The competition is double-elimination and is open to quiz teams who have won either a league championship or major tournament at some point this season.

16 teams in Class A; I think they actually do some kind of seeding…DCC is the #1 seed, and if they did seeding, we must be the #4 seed.   The competition is over two days; they play on Friday, basically until they lose, and then continue on Saturday.

Received updates from Kevin via text: 

- “We beat Gull Lake 300-135 and I got an Iron Man question”.  Stupid Dad thought it was an Iron Man-type of question particular to this competition, not an actually Iron Man super hero question (which is what it was)

- “We beat Holland by a hundred or so and I got a question about the Apollo program”

- “We lost 450-125 to DCC”

So, on to the loser’s bracket on Saturday

- “We play Owosso next”   “We beat them”

- “We barely beat Utica.  I sealed the win by getting a 9/11 question at the end”

Dad asks “what’s next”

- “Harry S Truman.  We’re playing for second"  “We beat Truman on the last question.” “We didn’t get a ZZ Top bonus question”.  “But I got a Barry Bonds question after the clue that he played for the Pirates in the early 90’s”

this is the next thing texted; the medal for second….

unsaid in the texts was that beating Truman meant another shot at DCC….Dad texts “Lost to DCC again huh” and Kevin texts back..

- “They didn’t break 400 this time, and we improved on our score.”  “I also got the opening question (it was Brett Favre)”.   They lost 360-160.

Emily not pictured, missed the last match and the awards ceremony…

More from the press release “More than 600 Michigan high school students from 35 counties across the state gathered at Michigan State University on April 19-20 to participate in the competition former Senate Majority Leader Dan L. DeGrow began as an annual event 26 years ago.

The event, sponsored by the Michigan State University Honors College and Meijer, Inc., was held at MSU for the thirteenth time.

The Class A competition, won by Detroit Catholic Central High School, was determined in one final match….. Second place went to Okemos High School, coached by Andrew F. The Okemos team included Abhijit D., Emily B. Kevin H. Martina F., and Mayank P. The team from Harry S. Truman High School placed third.”

Year-end Summary:  Posted by Herr Floyd on Facebook

“The 2013 OHS Varsity Quiz Bowl Team in Head-to-Head Competitions:
CAAC Blue Fall League: Regular Season & Tournament Champs with a combined record of 15-0. All-league: Mayank & Emily All-league honorable mention: Kevin

Quizbusters: White Division and Grand Champions with a record of 6-0.

Tri-County Winter League: Champions with a record of 14-0.

March Madness @ MSU: 9th place with a record of 7-5.

MSU Honors College Class A State Championship: Runner-up with a record of 5-2.
Class A All-State Team: Mayank

Final tally: 3 championships and a state runner-up finish with an overall head-to-head record of 47-7.
Congratulations on some fine performances, indeed!”

Hawaiian Panoramas

 

For a long time I used the Pano app on the Iphone to take panoramas.  The app created nice pictures and they were saved in the pictures folder.  With new Iphone operating systems, a new panorama app has appeared that comes standard….but it is a pain in the ass since the pictures aren’t saved as, well, pictures. 

Here are probably the last panoramas I’m taking with that app….I will go back to the old standby from now on.

Waimea Canyon, Kauai

Wailea Valley, Kauai

Garden of the Gods, Lanai

La Perouse Bay, Maui

Maui

Near Honokohau Bay, Maui