What sports are we covering through the end of 2014? Well, Cpher is in football and running cross-country. He will do basketball when the middle school season starts with tryouts in late October. Matthew is in soccer and cross-country. He will do basketball blah blah blah.
He was in football until last Tuesday…..
Last year, Matthew did both football and soccer. It was difficult; he missed about 1/2 of football because soccer came first. They had two teams at 6th grade, each team had 13-15 kids, and well, every time Matthew was there it was a good thing for the team. This year, we have one team of almost 30. We have missed more practice than usual (the day we can go to a whole practice, Tuesday, has been rained out every week so far) and our week in Boston made it worse. So, the coach decided that he wouldn’t play Matthew in the first game. We decided that hey, that’s the last thing we need to have going on in our busy schedule, to be attending practices and being held out of games as, they say in hockey, a healthy scratch. So that is done.
There is a part of me that hopes they lose on a missed extra point or two tomorrow. Because Matthew kicks better than any kid in 7th OR 8th grade…..and the coach could have made the decision AFTER practice this week (and he had a chance to look at him) not BEFORE.
Football: Cpher heads to St. Johns for a 12:30 pm matchup against the Redwings. A crazy game….
(I’ve literally seen basketball games with less points!)
No pics of Cpher; we’ll try next week. Like the 7th graders, the 8th graders have consolidated into one team. This, combined with Cpher’s lack of natural aggressiveness and perhaps aggravated by our week in Boston, earned Cpher every snap on offense at left tackle but only three snaps on defense.
Most games last from 90 minutes to 120 minutes. 8th grade games are longer….10 minute quarters. And 88 combined points(!), well, the game that started 20 minutes later lasted 2 1/2 hours. Suzanne and Matthew bailed shortly after halftime to get Matthew home and ready for soccer (didn’t really think it through…we would have been rushed in normal circumstances…).
Thought the boy played ok. Really want him to play to the whistle so was happy to see on the first play that when the running back was 30 yards downfield that Cpher was right there with him. Saw another play where he hit a shorter kids on his shoulder pads and just buckled the kids knees and drove him to the ground. Need to look at the tape…..
I figured with just one team we would look better than last year…..and so far so good. Giving up 36 points is troublesome though…..
Futbol: The start of league play. As I mentioned back in the write-up of the first tournament, this age, U13, is where state-wide competition begins. And we are in one of the two top divisions…the best teams in these divisions in the Fall will move up to what will be called Premier One in the Spring. That is the prize. Eight games this fall, 15 points (5 wins) and we are definitely in.
We are playing the Tigers. Matthew’s teams have never beaten the Tigers. Last year we lost by one goal on two different occasions to them.
I’m not sure the score shows how badly we outplayed them; we could have had a bunch more. Matthew just barely missed the post; another kid hit the crossbar. From the first moment, we thoroughly outplayed them. Happily, Matthew played really well. Still maybe not as aggressive or as confident as we would like but he was everywhere and was complimented for his ‘work rate’ and overall game today. Hope to see that continue too!
I’ll post the game report if and when we receive it. Three points down, 12 to go (and the Tigers beat another team, Force, today 2-1, so, I’m thinking we win that game too!). Like how the start of this season feels compared to last year!
