1) Cpher spent most of the day throwing up. Not sure what happened here; he didn’t eat anything we didn’t eat and none of us ended up catching a bug if he had one. But he toughed it out, went with Suzanne to Marquette (with one or two stops for serious bathroom breaks)
2) The family, without Cpher, went back to Marquette for dinner. We really liked Marquette; Suzanne was talking about retiring there. It was super pretty. There is the inconvenient fact that the annual snowfall is about 140 inches per year. So, maybe not.
I thought I had more pictures of Marquette
…but I only have these three….
will have to see what Suzanne has. This is the ore loading dock at Marquette. You’ll note how calm the lake is in all of these pictures.
3) The kayaking trip
on the way back Matthew and I shot through the gap between the rocks…
we went in a lot of these caves and checked things out. Mostly got dripped on
the boy likes to skip stones….
When we stopped for lunch we hiked around. This picture is after lunch when they went down near the lake (taking a route I was unwilling to attempt)
Not very sunny; and the winds picked up quite a bit on the way back. Could have been worse; we watched a thunderstorm go by to the north and kayaking through that would have been…well, an experience.
My kayak-mate. Kevin was paired up with another guy who was well…a little weird. Brought some type of Native-Indian flute to play inside some of the cave.
4) Mackinac
Didn’t take many pictures here…we’ve done it before. Walked around (we were there on July 4…oh my was it crowded!). Kevin, Matthew and I biked around the island….Cpher and Suzanne shopped. Ended the day with a sunset cruise under the bridge and then parked offshore to watch the fireworks at Mackinac City.
Always. Skipping. Stones.
The Mighty Mac
It *was* pretty neat to be this close and underneath the bridge
He has gotten his use of this Penn State sweatshirt!…..a lot of pictures of him in it that’s for sure.
The start: The usual Christopher noise about quitting before we even get started this season; this time the answer is “You are going to do one year of football at the high school; I want you to see what it is like and how different it may or may not be. After that, it is up to you.”
So he went to summer conditioning; three days a week starting at 7:29 am and going to 10:30 or 11. Some muttering about the early wakeup times but, I mean, as far as Cpher grumbling goes, it is pretty minor. And he’s downright happy and upbeat sometimes when we pick him up after practice. Seemed to be doing well in practice and getting compliments about how well he runs for his size. Still clearly the biggest kid on the freshman team; in fact, there might be two kids taller on both JV or Varsity. And he is also one of the faster lineman…a few seniors are faster but that is it. Freshman don’t have to do as many reps as the JV or Varsity but Cpher ran with the JV and Varsity
Real practice starts in early August. Again, some grumbling but more often than not it’s upbeat. Seniors on this team seem to be doing a really good job of making it a good environment and it seems like Cpher is having a lot of success
Family day is on a Saturday; we get there late and miss the practice part but several parents tell us that Cpher is singled out as the most improved freshman on defense (they picked one kid from each team). He barely played on defense last year…..
We have a scrimmage against Fowlerville; no score recorded but it seems obvious to me that our line, both offensive and defensive, is just blasting the other team off of the ball. Beginning to think we might be good as a team this year
Cpher looks like he might have figured this football thing out. Is blocking and pursuing to the whistle. Took Fowlerville’s biggest kid and pancaked him on one block.
So the first game is Wednesday at Mason. I’m taping from the press box; Suzanne, Kevin, and Matthew sitting in the visitor stands. We’ve been to a lot of varsity games here; Suzanne commented it was nice to finally see our son on the field.
The game: We won 22-0. Could have been a lot more; we were stopped on two fourth and ones at the goal line. Scored a safety on the next play each time. I don’t think they ever really threatened to score.
Matthew took a few pictures for me; another parent took some more.
Cpher played every snap on offense at left tackle. He played about 70% of the time at defensive tackle. They would rotate him and other lineman in and out on defense and later in the fourth quarter when the game was basically over.
In previous years I wondered why this group of kids never did better; it usually boiled down to having some good lineman but not having a full crew…and the other teams would just blast past the kids who aren’t good and that was that. This year, it looks like we have a full good line AND the best lineman, Cpher and two others, have really come into their own.
Because other teams just can’t move those three out the way on defense or get past them on offense. And it just opened everything for our skill players
Didn’t have many tackles…had this one but it is about 10 yards downfield on one of the few positive plays Mason had. Glad that he was following the play to the end though.
Maybe the most shocking moment of the game for me; watching Cpher, Alex, and Brock walk out as Captains. Finally remembered (it was some time after we were home) to ask him how this happened. “Well, coach said that Brock, Alex, and I were the strength of this team and we’ve been working really hard on both sides of the line and that we should go out there and represent the team.”
Floored. Just stunned that this happened.
This new and improved Cpher is fun to watch; I don’t see a lot of it during the game because I’m following the ball but the video…..he is finishing his blocks and sometimes ends up 10 yards off the line of scrimmage with his victim in tow.
There was one play where he came off the line and there was nobody in front of him. Old Cpher would just stop at that point and watch. New Cpher turned and absolutely creamed this outside linebacker who wasn’t expecting Cpher to do that.
I *don’t* think he will move up to JV or Varsity although I definitely have the impression he would be more than fine on JV. At Varsity the kdis aren’t necessarily bigger but they are more developed in terms of strength training. I think, if this team has success, that they will keep them together to have that success. And the initial signs look promising.
This picture is the first safety. Cpher didn’t make the tackle but the whole play happened because of that he did….he beat his man to the gap (the guy couldn’t move him out of the way). The blocking running back ran into Cpher and bounced off; the running back had to try and go outside and you can see how well that worked out.
Apparently the head coach is ex-military; he likes to run the sprints with the lineman at the end of practice. Cpher has to really move to beat him, and has, more often than not.
Not sure why he went with the not-tucked-in-shirt look. He was the only one out there like that…..seemed out of place but looked, if anything, taller(!) because of it.
After Saturday’s two wins we know that we will be playing in the Finals. And both games today will be against the same team; King City Royals from a suburb of Toronto
Game 3: 3-2 Loss
Three things of note from this game:
1) We come out with a different starting lineup than in the previous games. Our striker is pushed out to left mid. Matthew and Jackson, two of our starting center mids, are not on the field. One of our starting center backs is pushed out to right back. We obviously aren’t playing to really win.
I hate this. Matthew said something similar on the drive down and I told him how ‘unsavory’ I thought the idea of losing this game to possibly win the next was. And this team is so uneven, so *not* mentally tough,…..just don’t like it.
And we give up 3 goals in the first 10 minutes of the game.
2) It’s 3-2 by the half. We dominate the last 60 minutes of this game. Their parents whopped it up after the game but I’m not sure how anyone of those Canadians could have thought they had any chance in the final. They were tired, they were out of breath, and we carried the play to them but were just unlucky in finishing.
3) Matthew gets his second yellow card in two months….this one is for doing something I’ve been warning him about for months. He has gotten increasingly mouthy towards the refs when he doesn’t like their calls AND he doesn’t like any of their calls when they are against him. So, he picks up a foul (and I’ll agree with him, it was a weak call) and gets up and turns to the ref and says “Are you freakin’ kidding me???” and the ref blows his whistle again and pulls the card out of his pocket.
Dad shuts the camera off and yells out as loudly as he can “DON’T TALK TO THE REF!!!”
Game 4 (Championship): 5-2 Win. We won this going away….it was 4-1 at halftime.
Suzanne took a few more pictures during this game as well
The first of about five shots in a row of Matthew approaching and taking a corner kick. Worked out okay, we got a good shot on goal out of it.
The shirts say “Undisputed Champions”
League games don’t start until September 19th. So there won’t be many soccer posts for a while.
