From The Sports Desk – The Lost Weekend of Lax

The Waverly Festival.  Each boy has four games.  And it was ugly ugly ugly; combined the teams go 1-7 and there isn’t a whole lot to write about. 

We do have pictures!  Cpher got the short end of the stick here since Matthew wanted to take pictures during some games and Kevin’s attempt during the last game ended up with nice pictures but no zoom.  Sigh.

It was cold Saturday morning; this first set of pictures is from the second game that started at 1 pm.  Cpher still has his sweatshirt on underneath the jersey.

 

Love this picture!  The guy just shot the ball….and I didn’t include the other ones but Cpher gets his stick up and blocks it.

He was busy….we were under siege all day.  We played teams that separated their 7/8 teams into A and B teams….we separate evenly.  So, we beat B teams pretty handily….but A teams hand us our hats.  We were in the ‘A’ bracket this weekend.

 

This is the first of the pictures from the first game of the day.  Again, we got thumped. 

 

It wasn’t any better for Matthew’s team.  For many of Matthew’s games the teams are split up but for this festival we are all together.  This is unfortunate on many levels…less playing time and less chemistry between the kids.  Combine that with a poor decision or two by the coach (we put our best defense, best middie, and best attack lines out together…..which is fine, but, leaves the third lines out together as well….and that’s a disaster) and it was an ugly weekend.

 

Like Cpher, since we were under pressure all day long there was a lot of opportunity for Matthew to do something with the ball.  And he grabbed the ball and took off upfield early and often.

 

Didn’t work out well too often.  When three kids are on you, they are going to get the ball loose eventually.

 

One of the better pictures of the day….

 

The other cute thing about Matthew’s team is that some of the attack players decided to blame the defense for the problems…and really decided to single one kid out.  Told Matthew that the proper response to all of that was “Shut the hell up” and “Be a better teammate; shut up”.  Just not good to have that theme running through the weekend, and I don’t think the coaches did enough to stop it.

 

Two 7/8 teams; one 5/6 team are present at the festival.  Combined record is 1-11; the only win is Cpher’s team on Saturday morning against Rockford.

 

And Cpher did a good job being active and challenging the ball.  Still think he could make more of an effort to use his size as a benefit to his team….he likes to hang back from the scrums when I think he needs to just butt in and make his presence known.

More of the same from Matthew on Sunday.  Wait, I missed talking about something in Cpher’s games….in that second game Saturday, aside from getting whupped, Cpher and one of the opponents combined to do something really awful; bend his d-pole!  So, that meant a very expensive purchase of a new shaft!  His old shaft was the one I bought to play catch with Kevin, so, not completely torn up that this happened….it was a cheaper intro-model.

The new shaft is top of the line….and Matthew asked nicely to use it for his first game…you can see him with it here.  Matthew didn’t like it (it was the first time he had ever used the longer shaft) and threw it out to the sideline and went with his usual short stick for the rest of the game.  We’ve talked…if he is going to play defense exclusively he needs to transition to that long pole at the start of the season next year.

 

Matthew and Zac….Zac is the soccer goalie and these two play defense together in lax all the time.

In the final game of the day they mixed the positions up (part of this was to address the attack-blame-defense going on this weekend; a lot of those attack players got to play defense this game.

So Matthew is up at middie here.  And you can guess how this faceoff went by just looking at the picture.

 

After the faceoff; heading upfield.

After the 2nd game on Sunday; Matthew and I took off to head northeast to his soccer game.  I’ll hit that in the next post.

Letters

Since I’ve taken to printing the blog and turning it into a yearly book I’ve been better about capturing things that might get lost in the future.  So that’s this post….Kevin’s letter to himself and Grandma’s letter to Kevin.  Kevin is a failure on the letter front, he didn’t date the damn thing so he is unsure when he wrote it….he thinks it might have been late 8th grade or early 9th.  I certainly appreciate the teacher who saved it and posted the letter so that it arrived on his last day of school.

 

 

 

 

From The Sports Desk – The Week Before the Lost Weekend of Lax Edition

I have to be better during lacrosse season about these posts….I just lose track of what happened when there are so many games over a short period.

Monday the 12th:  Lax cancelled due to rain. 

Wednesday the 14th:  Matthew plays; Christopher has to skip because of Kevin’s final orchestra concert.  Matthew’s team beats Dewitt 8-7 or something like that…..

Picture 1 of 5:  This is what Matthew does best this year.  I don’t have the pictures before this starts, so, I just don’t remember how he grabbed this ball.  He is equally adept at scooping it off the ground in a scrum as he is at picking off passes.  I think, just looking at it, that this was a simple scoop after an errant pass. 

Picture 2 of 5: He’s about to cross the midline; you can see the middies have figured it out and one has his stick up to indicate that he is ‘staying back’ and we won’t be offsides (actually, I clipped it out, two of the middies have their sticks up and once they talk it over one steps up and joins Matthew on the attack.)

 

Picture 3 of 5:  That group of kids following Matthew were mostly playing attack for Dewitt; they can’t cross the line.  So Matthew is now cutting back into the middle of the field as he continues to shake the pursuit.

Picture 4 of 5:  I’d say Matthew is equal parts getting up the field and passing it off and equal parts going in for the shot.  Here, he’s clearly trying to get a shot off because he has the one guy on his left that he’s charging through, the guy on the right about to chop into his stick and the imminent introduction of Dewitt’s defenders into the play.  And Matthew is showing no inclination towards passing the ball….

 

Picture 5 of 5:  One of the reason he isn’t trying to pass is some pretty crummy spacing…those two attack for us shouldn’t be right on top of Matthew like this; they should have been taking off and heading for the other side of the goal.  The numbers finally catch up to Matthew here, he loses the ball in the next second or two without taking a shot and heads back upfield to await his chance to try again.

In the second half; he’s heading upfield again!  A very wet and cold day….

Friday the 16th:  Matthew has a soccer game against Wolves Black on Friday Night.  Matthew rated himself an 8.5 in his post-game grading talk and I’d have to agree; this was one of the better games Matthew has played in a long while.  We win 3-1 against a pretty good side…..a nice win for the team.

You can click on the picture below to see video highlights of Matthew’s day.  I recommend the final 20 seconds….more on that after the photo….

One thing (among many) that I like about how Matthew plays….very unlikely to take shit off of anyone.  After this sequence (the Wolves kid goes down, Matthew gets the foul) Matthew gets up and looks at the kid who made some type of crying/scream as he went down and says “Quit acting baby!” before he trots off.  This gets Matthew and the Wolf summoned back by the ref for a little talk….

Coach Stu’s Game Report:

DATE: 05/16/2014

TEAM: 02 Boys Blue VS Wolves Black

RESULT: 3-1 Home win

ATTACKING STRENGTHS

• In the final third we were very dynamic and ran at the opposition.
• Link up play between the striker and mid’s was very good.
• Very creative ideas and willingness to take on players.
• The full backs moved wider and helped us start off attacks as well as the midfielders being able to open up the game and help the ball swing.

ATTACKING CHALLENGES

• With us unable to practice the week before we made very similar mistakes.
• Changing of runs…not enough diagonal runs or runs between the lines. This is something we will work on to help us this weekend.
• Set pieces. Didn’t feel our movement was as good today as it could have been.

DEFENDING STRENGTHS

• Shape and ability to win the ball high up the field was key today.
• Read the visual cue of the opposition well and dropped in when the opposition had time and space.
• Very good in the air today.

DEFENDING CHALLENGES

• TACKLING! I still had to demo the ART of tackling at half time!
• Still get dragged across the field too easily. Need to be more disciplined in our positioning.

OVERALL COMMENTS

• Boys looked very sharp and the movement off the ball was very good! I was pleased with the style of play the boys put on for us tonight and the amount of good goal scoring chances.
• We need to have a little more conviction in our shooting especially from distance as we tend to not really ‘WHACK’ the ball, I would rather we missed by a country mile hitting the ball well then have the keeper making easy saves.
• The boys showed lots of quality in their build up play and patience, there was a lot more moving of the ball backwards and not just playing forward.
• I was also pleased that after the boys conceded we didn’t capitulate and continued to play well as create chances.

Coming Soon: 

FTSD – The Lost Weekend of Lax Edition

FTSD – Bruises Edition

FTSD – Canton Cup Edition

Letters to and from Kevin

Quizbusters Round 3: Dewitt

We’ll skip the summary and just post the link and a few comments; I’ll come back and do the summary tonight or tomorrow.

Click on the picture to get to the video.

1)  They killed them. 

2)  Not Kevin’s finest outing; half a second slow on almost everything. 

3)  Sometimes they go real geeky with the group of four things when they introduce themselves; thought they did a nice job this time around.

Senior Service Day

Stolen from the school newspaper; shocked that it was posted online before the end of the day!

“On May 20, the Class of 2014 came together to give back to their community, committing an entire day to performing various services to local charities and organizations in need. Senior Project Day, an Okemos tradition, involves Lansing-area institutions such as Burcham Hills Retirement Home, the Okemos Public Library, Ele’s Place, St. Vincent Catholic Charities, the Ronald McDonald House, Carriage Lanes, Ingham Medical Care Facility and Hospice of Lansing. Seniors are divided up into groups of 30 to 50 go to their assigned facilities where they are given tasks ranging from outdoor landscaping work to spending time with children and the elderly. Sydney Gwinn (12) was a co-captain of the Ronald McDonald House project. “Helping out at the Ronald McDonald House was a great way to give back, but it was also one of the last times to hang out and have fun with friends on this last stretch of senior year,” Gwinn said. Senior Project Day marked one of the final school days for seniors, with just one more until their final day on Thursday May 22.”

An AP Update

Kevin’s senior year is pretty much wrapped up; he completed his AP tests last week and this week he is officially in ‘coast’ mode.  Skip day was yesterday, senior service day is today.

Kevin had two AP classes and self-studied for three more. 

AP Lit – Kevin reports it is very difficult to get a ‘5’ here….past history and scoring I guess gives him that impression.  But he thinks he did well, certainly well enough to get the ‘4’ that he will need to get college credit.

Kevin had AP Lit in the first week of testing…then the next four were all in three days!

AP Government – The second test was the last of the school courses; Kevin had said before he could probably take this test blindfolded and get the score he needs….so, yeah, he thought he did more than good on this test.

AP Human Geography – Perhaps the most important of the tests….this class is considered a science class by Northeastern so, if he can get the score here he doesn’t have to take freshman science.  And Kevin is all about not having to take Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy (ok, he thinks astronomy might be cool).   So combine geography with some science talking about migration and population and that’s what you get here.  And it is in Kevin’s wheelhouse, he thinks he did really well here too.  He probably did more self-study for this class than any other…because the subject interested him.

AP European History – Would have thought this would be more of a slam-dunk than it was….but I don’t think Kevin studied as much as he could have and there’s a lot of history to cover.  He said he did well on the free response but was not as good on the multiple choice; that’s a problem since the multiple choice counts for more of the grade.  We’ll see I guess….

AP Macroeconomics – The test that Mom and Dad were most concerned about….I think this subject received the least amount of attention during self-study and even his last-minute cramming was delayed because the final orchestra concert was the night before the test.   Kevin says he did great on the multiple choice but not well on the free-response.  Again, we’ll see I guess…

Test results come out in early July; if Kevin would get above 4 on all of these tests (he’s gotten ‘5’s on the three he’s taken before this year…AP World History, AP US History and AP Stats) he would essentially start college as a sophomore.  In hindsight, we wish Kevin would have taken AP Calc…while he didn’t take the AP Calc course in school he did take Calculus…nothing to lose and everything to be gained (it looks like that AP Stats course will not count as freshman math) if he had went that route.

A whole lot of game reports

Apparently computer difficulties delayed these. 

DATE: 05/4/2014

TEAM:02 Boys Blue VS: Vardar Red

RESULT: 1-0 Loss (AWAY)

ATTACKING STRENGTHS:

• Created some really god 2v1s on the outside and created good shooting opportunities by laying the ball off to other players.
• Started the game off brightly and ran at the opposition with purpose and this helped us create some good free kick opportunities.
• Stretched the field offering lots of width.

ATTACKING CHALLENGES

• Didn’t take our chances in front of goal.
• When we created the quick counter attacks players didn’t bend their runs good enough to create the correct passing lanes.
• First touch from some of the players was with the wrong part of the foot.
• CONFIDENCE TO SHOOT!!!
• Didn’t follow our shots in!

DEFENDING STRENGTHS

• Didn’t let them have too many opportunities and dealt with the long ball fairly well.
• Some outstanding last ditch challenges against their number 8 and number 17 that were big fast and strong.
• Transition of midfielder’s especially wide players was fantastic.
• Good in the air dealing with high balls they played

DEFENDING CHALLENGES

• Getting dragged into areas of the field that you shouldn’t! Need to be better and marking the players and the zones rather then getting caught ball watching.
• Communication of who to pick up and when to pick them up needs to be better.

OVERALL COMMENTS

• This was a heart breaker. We started the game off fairly well as both teams were clearly set up to attack. We dealt with their long balls and then went on great counter attacking runs. We just didn’t have the composure or confidence in front of the net today to score.
• We made a few mistakes against a few very good players but for the most part controlled the game. The goal we conceded should have been stopped earlier on the left and the opposition player had time in the box and when my keeper saved it the player had time for the rebound. This was disappointing!
• We still had chances and had 2 stonewall penalties denied and hit the bar! Unfortunately for us it just was not to be!
• Goals change games and if we had of scored one of our many chances I think we would have went on to get 4 or 5. I made some poor tactical choices in the game and I feel I cost us today. The lads gave everything out there and should be proud of their effort. As a team WE will learn from this and I think we can use it to help us rediscover our style of soccer during the rest of the season.

DATE: 05/9/2014

TEAM: 02 Boys Blue VS: Detroit PAL

RESULT: 1-1 (game suspended at half: LIGHTNING)

ATTACKING STRENGTHS

• Moved the ball around very well and all the boys looked very comfortable on the ball in 1v1 situations.
• Did a great job of the forwards and midfielders linking to stretch the field and vertically and get in behind the opposition.
• Willingness to take shots from distance. This was great to see; we need to do this more!
• Stretched the field offering lots of width and swung the ball well.

ATTACKING CHALLENGES

• The movement and ideas were right but can we move the ball quicker and have sharper movement from everyone in the attacking third.
• Technique of striking the ball need to be better
• Crosses were good be we need to work on the timing a little more.

DEFENDING STRENGTHS

• Read the game well and we transitioned well to get into position and kept good shape with out the ball (for the most part)
• We looked to win the ball back quickly in the middle of the park!

DEFENDING CHALLENGES

• Just every now and again will get dragged to far across the field and need to mark our areas a little better.
• Tracking runner for rebound and longer balls.
• If one player steps, the other player / Players must drop.

OVERALL COMMENTS

• A very enjoyable half of soccer from the boys. We moved the ball around well and seemed to be enjoying our soccer. Swung the ball quickly and with purpose and created good opportunities to run at the opposition.
• We created tons of goal-scoring chances and kept the ball when it wasn’t ‘on’ better then previous weeks.
• Obviously after the disappointment of the previous weekend it was good to see the boys play with the enthusiasm that they did. Shame we only got to halftime as I think we would have scored a lot in the second half!

DATE: 05/10/2014

TEAM: 02 Boys Blue VS: Dearborn

RESULT: 4-2 Home win

ATTACKING STRENGTHS

• Moved the ball around very well and all the boys looked very comfortable on the ball in 1v1 situations. They ran at players with purpose and power.
• Again the link-up play was terrific
• Willingness to take shots from distance and scoring some!
• The full backs moved wider quickly and were more willing to get into the final third more and created goal scoring chances for themselves.

ATTACKING CHALLENGES

• Conviction in the strike. Too often we get into the final third and take something off of our strike.
• Changing of runs; there was not enough diagonal runs or runs between the lines.
• Set pieces. Didn’t feel our movement was as good today as it could have been.

DEFENDING STRENGTHS

• Shape in second half was very good.
• Started to talk more in the second half and this improved the overall team performance.
• We looked to win the ball back quickly in the middle of the park!

DEFENDING CHALLENGES

• TACKLING!!!!! Couldn’t believe the ease in which a player running with the ball broke us down. We need a bit more aggression in our bid to win the ball back (in all areas of the field)

OVERALL COMMENTS

• We controlled the game from start to finish. We knocked the ball around well and showed some fantastic attacking ideas. Players moved around in their positions and interchanged roles well during the game too!
• When we went 2-0 down and had played fairly well I was a little worried that our heads would drop but we stuck to the task very professionally and played our way out of that trouble! I was very pleased the intensity in which the game was played through out! Some of the goals we scored were absolutely brilliant.
• I want to continue to push the boys on the attacking aspects of the game for the next few weeks and hopefully we continue to produce like this again.

Channeling John Stewart

Had to hurry back from my trip to Illinois last week; I had to accompany Kevin and Drew to a concert.  Tickets were part of Kevin’s Christmas last year.  Getting home in time was a challenge; a 3-hour delay in Evansville, IN will do that!

But I made it, and we made it to Ann Arbor for the 8:00 start at the Ark.  And I had heard songs my the main act before, but, at some point during the opening act, I had this huge “Wow, this is the folk-iest concert I’ve ever been too moment”. 

To be perfectly clear here…this was Kevin asking to go to this concert, not me pushing him this way.  We did have quite a discussion about Skippy Songs on the way too and from Drew’s house (he was telling me a song he was playing was…but, it was not, and I had to explain to him what made a Skippy song and what didn’t.  Maybe a post for some other time.)

Opening act – one guy, a guitar, and a microphone.  Six songs, one with a harmonica as well.

Main act – two guys, two guitars, and one microphone.

Ended up shelling out for all of Brian Wright’s albums; already had everything by the Milk Carton Kids.

If you are curious, a click on a photo will take you to youtube

Brian Wright – We Don’t Live There

 

Milk Carton Kids - Michigan

Shrek

The musical has come and gone.  it was good, as it always is, and it was sad, since it’s the last time Kevin will be on-stage.  And it was disappointing, because I think Kevin could have had more of a role, but, not-so-much this year. 

(I do think he had one of the cooler costumes)

(Kevin with best buddy Drew afterwards.  If I think Kevin got hosed, then I think Drew got doubly-hosed in the casting.  That is Drew’s natural beard by the way…)

Oh yeah, he was the tail end of the dragon too!

and a Duloc Dancer…..

From The Sports Desk – The Agony Of Defeat Edition

Didn’t feel like writing about last weekend’s soccer disaster….so, way behind on this front.

Christopher:  Wow, what was the last game I talked about here?  I need to check….

Ok.  Three games to talk about;  Played at Holt almost ten days ago; they won 7-5.  Played twice last week; tied Dewitt 5-5 and beat up on Haslett 8-2 or something like that.

First of three pictures from the Dewitt game; I was not there (off on a work trip) but another Mom grabbed a few shots….I say it a lot but it is pretty clear here…Cpher the tallest on the team.

Doing his thing on Defense.  Does well with guys who come in slow and stop, does well on loose balls, does well stopping guys who think they can barrel through him.  The problem, for Cpher, and for most anyone, is the guy who makes a move about 2-4’ away from him and then tries to accelerate by…

But, as always, is out on the field almost all of the way…..

The most recent game was last Wednesday against Haslett.  This game was never in doubt but the big guy was busy…..

One of my friends coaches the Haslett 8th grade soccer team…he has told me to watch out for #81…he’s seen him play lacrosse and he gets the ball and basically runs in a straight line towards the other goal and look out who gets in his way.

I knew Cpher wouldn’t be getting out of the way….and the guy jumped into him and Cpher ended up on his butt.  But, the guy did not score and that is really all that counts.  He made a few more runs later on in the game; I noticed he didn’t run towards Cpher but instead went for the other guys.  He did score once right as Cpher came over to get him….

Matthew:  Let’s start with the lacrosse.  Also played at Holt….we won 3-2.  We only stayed for the first half before scooting off to soccer practice….and Matthew was a stalwart on defense.  Took the cheap shot of the year near the end….he was running upfield with the ball near the sidelines and the Holt coaches were telling their kids to push him out of bounds.  They did….but one guy came in way later after Matthew was a few feet out and just planted him…a solid cross-check to the chest that spun Matthew around.  He hit hard and complained later in the week about being sore in his back and neck…..the minor injuries are beginning to add up.

Matthew went to lax practice on Monday (easier for Suzanne to take both places at the same time while I was gone) and was pleasantly surprised to see Haslett show up for a game!  Some confusion in the schedule but practice is cancelled!  It’s a full squad game so he doesn’t play a lot and we win 4-3. 

Wednesday is a split squad game with a twist…band concert tonight!  So, there are normally 16 kids on the split squad, tonight.  Only 11.  You need 10 to play.  Again, we’re playing Haslett, this time away, not at home.  But for a 1-sub game the boys play tough and tie 3-3.

Thought Matthew played really tough except for some decision making…we were a man-down at one point and he should have kept running with the ball (and kept possession) instead of tossing it blindly upfield at one point.

Much as I’d like to see Matthew at middie….he is really growing into and liking playing defense.  Could be a lot of fun next year watching Matthew and his brother hold the fort on defense.

Soccer starts out with a game week ago Saturday; the spring fixture against Windsor.  They ripped us apart 9-0 in the fall so a good measuring stick of where we are at (I think).

We lose 2-0 on a really windy afternoon.  Thought we played well even though they controlled the flow of play.  Our two goals against were a result of a troubling trend recently…some seriously stupid positioning by a few players.

Sunday…late Sunday…is literally the game of the year.  Beat Vardar Red and we move on to the knock-out stages.  Would be a shocking surprise if we lose….VR has lost to Ole 7-1 and tied United 2-2….by the results, we look to be better…

Of course, there is a reason you play the games. 

Coach Stu was not happy with the team’s performance on Saturday…..told the boys that he watched who showed up on Saturday to play and who didn’t and would play those kids accordingly on  Sunday.  Matthew played well on Saturday (I’ve been asking him after each practice and game to rate his play on a scale of 1-10….he is pretty spot on about it…gave himself a 4 for his work against Ole but was up at an 8 for Saturday.  He did not start against Windsor (and I don’t know how much stock to place in starting and not-starting decisions that Stu makes) but was almost certain, given what happened Saturday and what Stu said about his play specifically, that he would start Sunday.

Not so much.  Comes in midway through the first half and then is subbed out pretty quickly (turns out Stu wasn’t happy with some of his turnovers…..more on this later).  Comes back on in the second half, plays hard and plays well but gets stepped on / cleated by another kid and is definitely hobbling around.  Stu asks him if he is ok, Matthew says yes but Stu subs him out anyway.

The team, as this team and in fact if I’m honest, any team Matthew seems to play soccer for, fails to capitalize on our chances early (and we had them!) and the other team gets the break and the bounce and scores to make it 1-0.  All we needed was a tie to go through to the next round…..we pushed forward and put a shot off the post but couldn’t get one past the goalie.  We lose 1-0.

A damned disappointing result.

So a few things here:

1)  Can’t really argue with the decision to pull Matthew due to injury…..but not happy about how he was treated in the first half.  Because honestly, if we are pulling kids for turnovers he should have benched the whole team.  

2)  Coach Stu, after the game, told the kids this loss was on him.  Which is a lot of baloney, he wasn’t out there kicking the ball around BUT don’t think his tactics were very inspired.  For a coach that seems to have wanted to play this possession-based soccer, he has been quick to switch to this quick long-ball style that our opponents have wanted to play.  Not surprisingly, we’ve lost both of those games (when we play this style Matthew and another boy become liabilities because they are not the quickest on the team…..both of those boys are tougher and make good physical plays.  I think we are weaker when we don’t play them as much.)

3)  While the decision to come to ( C ) has been good on many fronts IF you choose to measure on results then it was a total disaster.  ( T ) has overachieved all year; we haven’t won a game we weren’t supposed to win and lost many games we should not have lost.  Definitely not what we thought would happen.   The does-it-matter-moment?  No…Matthew insists he is happier here and would not go back (if he even could…)

4)  #1 and #2 have really brought the point home for Matthew that he needs to improve his speed and agility…..he will be doing a lot of running this summer. 

No game reports; I will have to bug the coach about what’s up with those…..

This weekend brought two games; Friday night and Saturday morning.  We tied 1-1 against Detroit PAL  Friday; that was the score at half and then the thunderstorms came in and that was that.

On Thursday, at practice, I noticed Matthew was hardly running at all.  He rated the practice as a ‘1’…says it hurt him in his left foot every time he ran.

We had a serious talk Friday afternoon about not playing Friday night or Saturday…he said it still hurt him at gym on Friday afternoon….he wanted to try it, Mom and Dad didn’t want him going out there and going half-speed…he had to go 100% or not at all.  Talked with Coach Stu; told Matthew if he had pain he had to ask to come out.

The team walking off the field courtesy of the GoPro camera, mounted on the goal post….you can see the rainbow to the left.  It didn’t rain for long, but I got soaked between packing up the chairs and retrieving the camera.   Will grab some photos from the video when I post the game reports (if we ever get them).

Matthew never asks to come out on Friday; says it hurt a little bit but didn’t really bother him.  Talk with Coach Stu before the game on Saturday morning and he says he had to remind Matthew to tell him if it hurts (I like that…have always liked that Matthew will try and play through things, but these games, especially after the state cup loss, really don’t mean much and we didn’t want him getting hurt even more and missing weeks instead of days)

Saturday morning we played Saginaw.  Went down 2-0 but scored the next four goals to win 4-2.  Matthew with a header for an assist on the second; he rated his play as an ‘8’.

The picture above is the first in the sequence…getting ready for a corner kick.

The ball is here…I think he just missed it…..

or if he hit it the ball went wide…because everyone here is looking to see what happened.

Matthew and Jackson heading forward after the kickoff…Matthew was up top at striker for parts of this game; had to remark to Suzanne how unusual it was to see our team’s striker passing the ball (he had two or three sweet sequences of possession and passing).

 

Will have to do a Sports Desk Thursday night; starting Friday Matthew had 2 soccer games and 4 lax games and Cpher has 4 lax games.