From The Sports Desk – Futbol Game Eight Edition

 

This soccer game is in direct conflict with Cpher’s last football game; gave Suzanne first choice and she chose soccer.  Turns out it was kind of a crappy day for both of us; Cpher’s team got hammered and Matthew’s team ended up in a 0-0 tie against a team I think we should have beaten.

Since I wasn’t there, I have no ‘direct’ comments that I can add here.  But….

• This was not Matthew’s best game; to the point that some people have referred to him having a ‘bad’ game.  Which is a lot different than playing ‘badly’……Suzanne has been steadfast that she doesn’t think he played ‘badly’
• Matthew started off at attacking center-mid and I think missed or mis-hit a few passes early, and that got him called to the sidelines for a little chat with Coach Stu that ended up with him crying a little on the bench.  I don’t think Stu was mean…I think Matthew took things a little too personally.
• Went back in as center-back and did ok…but did get called for a foul where he was grabbing a jersey and then called for an inadvertent hand ball that gave the other team two pretty decent free kick opportunities.
• Had a one-on-one chat with Stu right after halftime as the game started.  This mostly consisted of coach trying to build Matthew confidence back up as I understand it.
• Played a lot better in second half…started at center-back and then back up at attacking center-mid.  Seemed to create more offense his second stint up front.

No more outdoor soccer until March….

(can’t deny it.  I thought this would be a whole lot better than it is)

(Fall 2013 – Final)

Coach Stu Says:

1ST HALF SUMMARY

Boys started off playing some very good soccer. They played some excellent attacking soccer and put the opposition on the back foot for the most part. We tried to pass the ball out of the back and were looking pretty sharp on the ball. A few times in the middle of the field we tried to do things a little too quickly and this led to a few transitional moments where we were put under pressure. However for the most part of the opening 20 minutes we looked sharp and opened up the opposition well. We looked the most dangerous in the wide areas and this freed us up to create good goal scoring chances in the middle of the field. Then in the last 7 or 8 minutes we took our foot off of the gas and started to play a little too direct and against the wind we lost control of the game and conceded a few good chances. We must remain calm even after we make a mistake and try to continue to build out of the back and keep the ball to draw the opposition out of position. We must also remain a little calmer as a back line when a player turns us; we can’t dive in or drag the opposition down. They had two excellent opportunities from free kicks that were given away from silly fouls that we just need to stand the player up. At the end of the half their goalkeeper turns the ball onto the post with a brilliant save to deny us.

2ND HALF SUMMARY

A much more complete second half. We got back to knocking the ball around with ease and showed our quality to create chances in the final third with some great combo and long range efforts. One of the best moves in this half was the driven switch from right back to left mid followed by a drive into the box and then a lay off to the left back. Although we missed the chance it was an outstanding play! We created some excellent chances and had multiple shots from our outside mid’s and fullbacks. We had good chances from set pieces that we didn’t take advantage. The best chance of the game fell to my forward who rounded the GK and was dragged down by his trailing foot in what was a clear goal scoring chance. We unfortunately missed the penalty due to their coach screaming during the kick which was an injustice in what should have been a red card to their GK (foul last man) and the coach (for putting off a player)

OVERALL

Some excellent soccer today but lacked the clinical finishing we require to show our dominance (aside from a 7 minute spell). Very happy with the performance and something we can build on in the Winter to get us to where we want to be in the Spring!

Goalkeeper: Good game overall. The few times he was called into he made some great stops and distribution was fairly good aside from a few into the wind that were a little high so didn’t carry well.

Defenders: For the most part on the same page and worked well at nullifying the threat of their speedy wingers and strikers. However we got caught moving up the field a little too quickly and getting the wrong side of our marker when we didn’t have the ball a few times.

Midfielders: At times we looked unbelievable and created some outstanding chances. However there was a few times were we tried to do a little too much. They made it difficult to take too many touches today and we must make slightly quicker decisions.

Forwards: Held the ball up well and brought others into the game. Some great strikes from here today but their keeper was in top form. Great run to win the penalty and we were unlucky not to get us the goal we deserved.

Iphone Photo Dump – Seriously Random Edition

 

Been a while since I’ve done this type of post, so, there are a lot of random photos out there to talk about.  Pictures not presented in chronological order.

Arriving home from school.  Matthew has grown tired of the bus (I think the bus driver is overly controlling and Matthew has opted out of that…and also walks with his friends home) but I think this one is after a bus day.  The picture is notable for a few things…the dog welcoming Matthew home…the couple on the sidewalk including the creepy older dude who always walks without his shirt on and the two chihuahua dogs that absolutely drive Holly nuts (those two midget dogs have keenly figured out just how far Wiley and Holly can go with the invisible fence….and set up about 6 inches outside of that)

After football practice one day….everyone else is gone, the sun is almost gone, and the boy is practicing his kicking.

This cat loves to spend all night outisde…and the early morning with this boy.

Took this picture of the first soccer game of the year…don’t know if I ever posted it.  The complex up in Midland.

I know these two photos are the most recent of the bunch….the boys getting their pumpkin-ing done right after I left for Indianapolis. 

And, for the second year in a row, the boys are making another attempt to plant all of these seeds somewhere in our lawn and get pumpkins next fall.  I think they looked up the instructions on the internet on the best way to clean and plant the seeds so, that’s what is going on here.  Suzanne told me over the phone that it is amazing how nicely these two can work together sometimes (and more often than not over the last few months they have been like oil and water over EVERY LITTLE THING NO MATTER WHAT).  I think they might be acting that way just to annoy Mom and Dad (it’s working!).

Mums in Chicago along the Magnificent Mile.  These pictures are from our trip downtown during the soccer tournament.

We were going to go up Willis Tower but, it was cloudy and overcast and what is the point of that if you can’t see forever.

Had dinner at Giordano’s….and then walked around some more and did some shopping.  Suzanne mentioned that we’re lucky that we don’t have girls with the opportunity to spend a small fortune at American Girl.  But…..

there is more than enough opportunity for small boys to find ways to spend a small fortune.  This time, it is Cpher who found more than a few things at the big Nike store that he thought might fit him well (he has been wearing the jacket a lot…here, obviously worn as soon as he bought it, and you can see it in he pumpkin photos above)

I drew the short straw and slept with Cpher on this trip (one could say that he drew the short straw and ended up with me!).  He’s out in this photo, snoring up a storm.  I had to almost completely wake him up to get him to roll over, give me a little more room, and stop the noise!

The senior float from this year’s homecoming parade.  Kevin only really helped out with the float his freshmen year.

Cpher, with the 7th grade team.  He saved some of his candy to throw now….you can see it flying towards us (and the kids surrounding us)

Matthew, with his team.

          

Two pictures from our journey to scout out senior picture locations….I’ll save more description on this for when the pictures show up.

Another photo that will have more discussion later when we get the official photo from the school…the family photo from the national merit reception

The UPS guy.  He always brings treats for the dogs and, well, treats for the family too (we don’t pay for the dog treats though).  This delivery was for the Xbox - Batman: Arkham Origins….with this and the upcoming Call of Duty release on 11/5 the boys will be kind of scarce in the upper levels of the house.

From The Sports Desk – Cpher Football Season Closeout

 

Two games to talk about to end the season.  And the whole season can be summarized in those two games.

Holt:  Won(!).  I don’t know if I even remember the final….21-6 maybe?  And I can be honest about it….they were winless too….and they played that way.  Seemed like they wanted to throw on every play…not a recipe for success.

After the last game (where Cpher was yelled at quite a bit…and part of the yelling was that his stance was horrible) I talked with the big guy and found out that he wasn’t quite sure how to fix it.  So, we went and talked to the coach, and Cpher got a nice pep talk which was along the same lines of what I was sure of what was going on…hey, you’re doing ok, but, with you size and your speed you should be doing a lot more.  The stance he was in was robbing all of his power…he had no choice but to stand up as his first movement instead of moving forward.  A simple correction.

So, Cpher had that to think about as this game started.  And there was one thing that became apparent pretty quickly; if Holt was going to block Cpher with one guy, Cpher was going to be in their backfield all day.

You can click on either of the two photos for the video highlights of Cpher’s day….

The first play of the game…the quarterback there is recovering his fumble as Cpher rolls over the top of him

This is two or three plays later….the guy in pink socks has tried to block Cpher…Cpher ran by him and through him to get to this reverse right as the exchange takes place. 

About immediately thereafter Cpher saw double teams on running plays for the rest of the game (they didn’t double him on passing plays…which is weird, because he was always in the backfield hurrying the throw).  He did OK on the double teams too….I think sometimes he was just content to take the block and stay at the line of scrimmage and look for the ball but there were a few times he just drove both guys off the line and made a play.

East Lansing:  And the season ended with a thud; we were down 25-0 before rallying to make it 31-12.  Thought Cpher played poorly as well; kind of slid into the butt-down stance as time went on and didn’t hold his blocks on offense at all (which led to a fumble recovered by them and a pretty big loss on a running play).

To be fair, EL lined up a very fast guy way outside of Cpher on the line…..and we did nothing to help Cpher out (no running back or TE help) and Cpher had very little chance of getting out that far that fast off of the line to do anything. 

I’m sure we’ll be back here next year…8th grade football is sure to have only one team so that alone will make us a heck of a lot more competitive.  

Indianapolis

 

This is my third visit to Indianapolis in the last four months; I’ll be back one more time in two weeks.  I took some pictures as I was walking around during the last visit so I figured I’d throw them out here.

Downtown is definitely set up for walking…..there are a lot of sights and restaurants within a 2 mile radius.  This is looking northwest along the White River (talk about your slow moving rivers…I don’t think I’ve seen any current anytime I have walked along it).  That’s IUPUI over there on the right….

Nice paths on both sides of the river…the zoo is on the other side of this big wall.

Looking back at downtown Indy.

Starting at about my hotel and running through most of downtown is the canal walk.  The headquarters of the NCAA is right near my hotel as well…you can see one of their buildings on the left here.

They put in a lot of murals for the Super Bowl…this picture came out better than I thought since there wasn’t a lot of light under the underpass)

Looking back towards downtown from the end of the canal walk to the north.  There were a couple places to rent paddleboats and kayaks during the summer.

A waterfall at the north end….saw more than a few kids getting their senior pictures done at various spots along the walk.

The USS Indianapolis memorial(?)…..

I guess you wouldn’t talk about it on a memorial like this, but, the ship sinking is really only half the story of the ship sinking.  The Navy didn’t know of the sinking for four days and the deaths from sharks/exposure/drowning made this the worst loss of life at sea in the history of the US Navy.

The Capitol

What is with every state and city in the Midwest trying to claim any portion of Abraham Lincoln’s heritage that they can?   I guess a teen-aged AL spent some time in Indiana….

Inspiration

 

Presented, without much comment (oh, and the last sentence I could comment a ton on!), is Cpher’s essay about someone who inspired him.  Was very humbled when he told me about this and stayed away from it until it was over (I have been trying to help him self-edit when I know he has an essay….but he didn’t get that help here).

“Have you ever looked up to someone? He or She might be your dad or a zookeeper at a local zoo. Well, my inspiration comes from my father because he always loves me, encourages me, and does extra things for me.

My dad cares for me a lot. When we are mad at each other and fight he finds a way to make things better. I hate fighting with him so when we try to make up he’s courteous, and kind. I feel like my dad will do anything for me so that makes me feel really good inside. Sometimes I want to skip sports we agree that I can’t skip today but maybe next week.

I don’t think my dad is mean to me. When I have to leave for sport he makes my brothers and I food before we have to leave. If, we have sports overlapping we leave extra early so we are not late. Since my brothers like my mom more than dad I like him more so we travel together and make our bond stronger.”

Basketball 2013-2014

 

Football is over, fall soccer is over, so, it is time to transition to the next sport on the list.

Matthew:  The boy has been quite vocal, from almost the end of last year, that he didn’t really want to do basketball again.  I have, as I always do, tell him that we don’t need to make these decisions when the start of the next season was 8 months away, we’ll make it then.  And, as we got closer to the tryouts, he relented a little bit (with some encouragement from me; hey, you’ve never not been on the ‘A’ team, it is a good sport for you, etc.).

Went to tryouts.  They went ok.  Almost immediately afterwards Matthew is saying again that “Dad, I really don’t think I want to do basketball.”  As shitty as it sounds, we agree that if he doesn’t make the ‘A’ team that he will stop.

And he didn’t….placed on the ‘B’ team with 11 other kids.  What genius put 12 kids on one team….how is that going to work? 

Matthew and I agree that he’ll take advantage of some of the extra soccer training available in November and December.  And since we have a gap in soccer I decided to put together an indoor team for Nov/Dec.  And, without basketball, there will be more time (hopefully) for something Matthew loves, but hardly ever gets to do:  snowboarding.

Cpher:  Being at the middle school this year means that there is an actual school-sponsored team.  Practice after school, take the bus for away games….the sweet life!   He’ll still do the community organized league, but, that doesn’t start until after this league ends in December.

48 kids show up to try out for the 18 spots on the 7th grade A and B teams.  Cpher comes home from the first day of tryouts (they do 3 days!….that’s kind of nice) and says “I have never seen some of these kids at basketball tryouts.  Ever.”

(an aside:  I think Matthew has a decent shot here for at least the B team next year if he chooses to do the school team)

So, they tryout Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday after school and Friday after school they all report to the gym and pick up an envelope with the results.  They aren’t allowed to open the envelope on school grounds.  Cpher walks out to the car, opens the envelope, and says “yes!”.   “Congratulations, you have made the Chippewa 7th Grade basketball team!”

They provided a list of the 18 kids that made it (they will sort out the A and B teams this week).  Every kid on Cpher’s team last year that tried out made it.

Of course, since we are doing basketball we need to reevaluate the shoe situation.  And of course, last year’s don’t fit.

(Cpher originally picked out some light blue with orange sole shoes that would have at least had the blue match the blue in the school colors.  But they didn’t have that color in his size, so, he went with the teal option above)

Cpher Part Two:  This deserves at least a heading of it’s own; I don’t think I’ve typed it out here yet but Cpher is now the 2nd tallest person in the family (about two weeks back he just barely cleared Suzanne and me…now the distance is very noticeable.  God help us if he’s in shoes and we’re not!).   And he is the second kid to now need a size 13 shoe!  Battleships!  Just crazy how big these shoes are.  At least he can stop wearing my shoes now…they are so tight that they don’t work for him!

Pittsburgh now and then

 

Turns out that the City of Pittsburgh has their 1984 maps available on their GIS site.  So, the answer to the questions posed on the phone call today are pretty easy to figure out.

Today:

I tried to keep the picture window I clipped from both images the same distance so the scale is the same…I used Martindale street in the upper left (you can see it make that right turn) as the one corner and where 7th Street hits Fort Duquesne on the other side of the Allegheny as the other.  Turns out my use of Martindale was pretty prescient…

1984:

You can see the small lots on Alcor more towards the General Robinson intersection..

And here are two zoomed in versions; again, I used the same start and end points, the intersection of General Robinson at the Main PNC Gate in the upper left and where 6th Street hits the Allegheny on the bottom right.

Today:

 

1984:

definitely in the park…maybe more in the stands than left field, but, hey, left field sounds better.

Daniel Webster Elementary:

This was a little tougher….but…

Anyway, the University of Pittsburgh library has a map that was updated from 1923 to 1961 online.

You can see Alcor down there on the bottom right.  DW is right below the map guide in the upper left.

Here is DW zoomed in and centered….head east on Martindale to see the intersection with Merchant to compare below.  Or look at the train tracks.

My civil engineering guess is the school bit the dust when the the freeway went in.  Not sure how much of that was coincident with Three Rivers (and don’t have the interest to go try and find out!)

 

Okay, I decided to see if I could figure it out (I couldn’t).  I found this (so that effort was worth it). 

104 Alcor Street, circa 1939. 

Coming Attractions

 

I’m back in Indianapolis for four days next week so I will save up my blogging for then.  But, as a reminder to me, here’s what’s on deck.

• Iphone photo dump.  There’s a lot there to talk about
• Cpher’s next-to-last football game (they won’t end the season winless!)
• Indianapolis.  Many of those photos are of Indy; I figure if I could blog about Rome I can blog about Indy.
• Basketball.  One boy’s basketball career comes to a (temporary?…probably not) end.  Another boy heads in a different direction.
• Senior Pictures Part 2:  Not sure if I’ll wait for the actual pictures to be posted to actually talk about the process.
• Inspiration.  Kind of shocked by this, but, it’s going to get posted.
• Schools:  A post on Kevin’s choices is probably in order
• The last football and the last futbol game of the fall. 
• Quiz Bowl Update:  I don’t talk about Kevin’s bi-weekly matches nearly enough.  I’ll try to remedy that.
• Fall and Winter Plays:  In a senior year full of good news so far, this was not one of the better moments.
• Dog and Cat update.  Why not? 

More Honors for the Semifinalist

 

There will be another post about this when the rest of the photos roll in.  But, the High School had a very nice reception for the semifinalists two weeks ago after school.  Punch, cupcakes (Suzanne gave the punch some very high marks.  Principal, superintendent, parents….pretty nice little 45 minutes.

The local press was there and wrote a story.  The headline read “…High has 10 National Merit Semifinalists”

And there are nine of them.  Sigh.

Anyway.

“Nine members of the Okemos High School Class of 2014 were recognized at an Oct. 10 reception for their having National Merit Scholarship Program Semifinalist status. The Okemos students are among 16,000 semifinalists nationwide out of 1.5 million students who took the test in October 2012. Front row, from left: Curtis K., Gavin M., Kevin H.. Back row, from left: Debra Y., Abhijit D., principal Christine S., David M., Jacob M.. Not pictured: Elizabeth Z., Sam N.”

From The Sports Desk – States 2013

 

Kevin headed out via bus to Holland Christian for States Thursday night; I drove out Friday morning to watch. Team expectations are lowered this year; even though we do have one seed (2 singles is a #4 seed) the rest of the team is buried in the draw with first round matches against real opponents (instead of byes) and 2nd round matches against seeded teams.  Last year it was 1st round byes, 2nd round matches, 3rd round matches against seeded opponents.  Matching last year’s point total is all but impossible; we’ll see what the team result is.

Kevin and Adham are one of the unlucky draws; a first round match up with Zeeland East and then a 2nd round matchup against #2 Forest Hill Northern.  The bright side?  Kevin and Ross last year went up against a #2 FHN team….and won!

Round 1:  We’ll take this game by game with the corresponding video linked with each picture.

They win to take a 1-0 lead.  Kevin hits a nice passing shot at about the 1:20 mark to finish off the game.

Win, not easily, on serve, to take a 2-0 lead.  Kevin was not very happy with the miscommunication at 0:25 mark; Kevin’s about to crush it on his overhand and Adham butts in and messes it up.  Hits a nice winner from the net on his backhand at 3:45.

Won to break them again and take a 3-0 lead.  Go watch this clip; Kevin had three returns for winners including two off of nice serves by ZE.  The best of the bunch is shown above, Kevin is driven to the right here and makes a really nice shot to pass for the winner (that starts at 1:52).

Kevin’s service game; they hold serve to go up 4-0.  This game marks the beginning of the ZE lob game; Kevin does not hit the first ball that is lobbed to him very well at all.  Serves are pretty good, but, there’s one of the dreaded double-faults in here as well.

The break ZE again to go up 5-0.  Not a lot of good stuff from Kevin here; both rallies that he tries to hit a winner for end up in the net or out.  But ZE makes enough mistakes that it doesn’t matter.

They go up 30-love here; and give up the next four points to get broken; they only lead 5-1 now.  Kevin hits a nice shot here at the net to get to 30 (starts up about 0:46 of the video)…..but a whole lot of nothing afterwards.

I don’t get all of this game on tape, but, they finish off the set 6-1.  Kevin has nice sequence of overhands starting at about 0:34.  The line judge chased that ZE dude in brown away from the fence during this game…

If you didn’t watch any of this video WATCH THIS GAME.  Kevin’s second service game of the match starts this set, and it takes him about 70 seconds to head back to the sidelines for another drink.  A nice overhand smash for the second point, and a nicely placed ball to the center for the wining point. They are winning 1-0 in the second set at the end of this game.

ZE has some problems with double-faulting and we go up 2-0.  Kevin hits a shot with a lot of spin that the ZE guy completely misjudges for a winner at around 1:20 and then hits another baseline overhand at 2:35 (after a good rally) for another winner.  He finishes the game out with a nice sequence of deep return and pretty passing shot at 3:00.

Man, it’s amazing to me watching this again that we won this game….Adham’s serves come off the rails pretty spectacularly but ZE really can’t take advantage of the problems.  Leading 3-0. Not a whole lot of Kevin here; he hits a nice backhand and then jumps and really is lucky to get the overhand in during a sequence that begins at around 1:40.

Takes about 2 minutes to break ZE here and go up 4-0….this game has a lot of nice Kevin-action as well.  A return and then volley for a winner that starts at 0:20.  An overhead smash at the net for a winner at 0:49.  A nice return at the net followed by a overhead smash at the net that he can only laugh about at 1:30.  And a return at 1:59 to win the game.

The last Kevin service game of the match…and I thought for a while here he was going to blow through it like he did the first game of this set.  But, a inopportune double-fault gave ZE a point before they closed it out to lead 5-0.  I think the first 80 seconds of this game are worth watching; everything as Kevin starts to double-fault and afterwards isn’t as good as the first part.

And that’s that, they win 6-1, 6-0

Round 2:  And I lingered so much on Round 1 because Round 2 was exactly what a match against the #2 seed was probably going to be….a 6-1, 6-3 loss.  Glad they rallied in the second set (they were up 3-2 at one point).  I have video of most of this…it may never be watched.

(the end…although you can see the crappy draw problem clearly here.  Last year we were in the ‘H’ slot, this year we were not.  The difference is one team point in the overall standings, but, this type of draw seemed to happened to every one of our flights…)

Gave Kevin a big hug afterwards…..got all teary-eyed as I told him how proud I was of him (think the actual quote was “damned proud”).  Can’t believe I got that sappy….Suzanne was laughing at me afterwards because there are a lot more ‘last events’ to come.

Definitely playing a lot better brand of tennis at the end of this year than I’ve ever seen before….nothing to be ashamed or disappointed about in how it came to an end.