Time to play a little catch-up…….as of today we’ve been soccer-free for almost two weeks. That ends next week with soccer camp. The last event before we left was the Holt 4v4 School’s Out Shootout. Suzanne, Matthew, and I spent most of the day over in Holt as Matthew and four of his TNT teammates tried to win the U9 division.
Suzanne only took pictures during the last game; the final. We lost our first game 2-0 to Dewitt…..they very obviously had a plan of how to play the 4v4 game and we did not, they scored both of their goals on breakaways. Lesson learned…always keep someone back right near your goal.
Our second game was against a younger team (they grouped the U8s and U9s together) and we mercy-d them, we won 10-1. When you get up by 7 goals you have to take a player off the field, we were playing 3 on 4 and still scoring.
Matthew, who is playing mostly defense, gets up front in this game and scores a goal.
You play two games and then the teams are seeded for the single elimination part of the tournament. Because we lost, we are the #3 seed and get to face the #2 seed, that Dewitt team that beat us earlier. They score a goal in the first half on a penalty kick (no goalies in this game, but, there’s an arc around the goal you can’t step in), we’re down 1-0. Boys come out and score twice in quick fashion and we’re up 2-1 and hold on for the win.
We move on to the finals against a team of kids from the other soccer club, the Chill, and one TNT player from the U10 team. Our canopy has been set up right next to them so there’s been a lot of good-natured banter back and forth…..
We score once, and then twice, in the first half, and the life just seems to go out of the other team. They don’t seem to mount any offensive pressure, and we go on to win, 2-0. Champions! Kind of sweet to keep beating the kids from the other travel team as well…..
Posing with the trophies….
The obligatory goofy pose….not sure why Matthew came up with this idea….
Afterwards, the boys did penalty kicks to see who would take home the scoreboard….Matthew missed his first shot (you shoot from almost half field at the small goal…as we told the boys all day, it’s harder than it looks)
