More soccer, this time in Grand Haven, at the beach, for Soccer in the Sand. We missed this tournament last year as we were gallivanting around Europe.
So, we headed out to West Michigan. Left Mid-Michigan Friday morning, arrived GH in the afternoon. Checked into the hotel and made it to the beach. A nice sunny day so the water, especially in the shallow areas, had warmed up a bit. Still pretty chilly.
First game is 1 pm on Saturday….let’s get some pictures in here and I’ll continue to discuss Saturday’s games. I have pictures of Grand Haven from Friday night that will be another post later on….
To get a parking spot at the beach you have to arrive really early morning. That meant a 6:45 wake up call and a 7:45 arrival at the City Beach Parking Lot. It also means a lot of time sitting around on the beach waiting for the first game. The other families showed up later, and it was nice to hang out with them all day.
Soccer tournaments can be very long days…but at least you could go into the lake here! Weather was kind of crappy in the morning though…very little sun and kind of cool!
First game is against another club team; Alliance. A little adjustment for Matthew, and really for most of the boys to remember what to do here and how different it is on the sand.
What’s different? Well, the ball can and will bounce anyway…or just die in the sand.
Goalies can’t punt… but can throw. And you can throw the ball back to them. This means a lot of the offense for both teams ends up being long throws up the field and then a battle to get the ball….or stop the other team from getting the ball.
This battle, headers, bodies, etc….these are all Matthew strengths so this is a good thing.
Picture 1 of 3: A good example of one of those battles….
Picture 2 of 3: Not sure if Matthew touched the ball now or let it go to get on it afterwards, but, he does get off a shot….
Picture 3 of 3: It doesn’t go in though. No goals on the weekend; a lot of assists though!
It’s hard to walk on sand….my ankles were killing me after trucking coolers and chairs and umbrellas back and forth from the car to the beach. I can’t even imagine how hard it is to play soccer and run and run and run……just amazing how these kids play.
We won the first game 6-4….
Second game starts a rain shower passes through; that’s why these pictures are noticeably darker….and the shirts are back on.
The tournament team is nine kids; all from last year’s team. It is really important for Suzanne and I to maintain these friendships, and have Matthew maintain these friendships….and we like being with this group of people and playing soccer with them. This is the second of four summer tournaments with some subset of this group….
This is not the greatest of pictures but I wanted it because Matthew controls this ball, dishes it off to Henry there, and we score.
This game was over early…we won 10-0. Not sure who these guys played with, couldn’t tell from their team name…..but, 10-0 is 10-0.
More Matthew and Henry action…..one of the neat things about this game was that the boys were trying to do bicycle kicks….Even Matthew got his big body up into the air for two attempts (I thought the second attempt looked pretty good…nice form, good height…just no ball!)
We’re in a five team division so we will play each of the other teams once to determine the champion. No playoffs, So, even if we would have stunk we would have gotten four games instead of three…that’s a bonus.
But, obviously, we are not stinking it up…..we play the other 2-0 team first thing on Sunday and the winner of that probably will win the division.
Left the beach around 6 pm….a long long day but good to come away with two wins!
