Christopher: A lot of lacrosse to recap!
Wednesday – played East Lansing and absolutely blasted them, 11-1 is the final. There seem to be only three steady defensemen on this team….so that means Christopher plays a lot…at least until this game is out of hand and other decide they would like to play defense when there is no pressure on them!
Like these new jerseys; especially the Carolina Blues…..
Slowly but surely the boy has started to take possession of the ball and do things with it on defense. Here he has the ball….
…and off it goes upfield.
Sometimes our goalie likes to grab the ball and head upfield; he used to do this a lot and it was annoying. Now, it’s only rarely and when there is a clear opportunity. Cpher has been the guy who sits in goal while he is gone….and we’ve come very close to having Cpher have to deal with a shot after some goalie missteps!
Speaking of shots, the 8th graders can shoot the ball really hard….and Cpher took one of those shots off the leg in this game. He has had a good time showing us this colossal bruise he has on his leg.
But he did a good job here….this play is where he does his best…not so much stick, more body. And the ball is loose on the ground (I think that small kid swoops in and gets it though)
Saturday….two games in the morning…..three teams come to Mid-Michigan and play three games….against us, East Lansing, and Haslett. The first game is at 9 am…it is sunny but there is a cold wind a-blowin’ from the northwest. We play two games and the other 7/8 team plays the last one of the day.
This first team they invited to come and play these games was a mistake…..it’s a travel team put together specifically to play in summer tournaments. They are, quite simply, the best team I’ve ever seen at this age level. Very quickly I’m texting Suzanne “Down 1-0” ‘Down 4-0” “Holy shit is this team good!”
The final is 12-4. Played the whole game until he tripped a kid in the fourth quarter and got a one minute 'enforced ‘rest break’. Thought he did ok….but this year is really reinforcing my resolve to ‘convince’ Cpher to do some extra lacrosse with one of the local travel clubs….if he is going to be counted on defense so much by his team he needs to go somewhere where he can really learn how to play defense.
Second game is at 11 am against Swartz Creek…..and we wallop them, 11-1 or something like that. Again, the boy goes the whole way, this time without the enforced rest.
Matthew: Wednesday lax, also at East Lansing. A 3-3 tie…we dominated the game but gave up 3 goals in 3 minutes in the third quarter and that was all they needed.
played some middie today….it is the only time in the next 4 games that he’ll make it up here…
not the only time he in the next four games he will find his way over here….sitting for a minute for a penalty for some villian-y on the field
Friday Soccer: traveled south to Jackson for the first league game of the year; won 2-1.
Not Matthew’s finest game (we’ve asked recently, he graded himself as a ‘4’ on a 1-10 scale…I think that is a little unfair) but it did have some moments to talk about
Matthew is on the far right…and he’s battling with this guy for position to the point that the referee blows the play dead to come have words with the boys. I think, as Matthew tells it, that the guy starts shoving Matthew and Matthew slapped his hand down and that was the tipping point. At least in this picture-from-the-video, Matthew has his hands almost crossed on his chest as he moves in….
Late in the game they had this free kick…..Matthew, again barely visible on the right, jumps up and heads it away ending their last good chance to tie the game.
I guess it was also eventful in the handshake line where some Rush kids were mouthy that we were lucky, etc. Apparently Matthew earned the respect of more than a few of his teammates for answering the talk very matter-of-factly, with one word, “scoreboard”.
Coach Stephen says: (had a guest coach today…)
COACH: Stephen M.
TEAM: U12 Boys Blue VS: Rush Jackson
RESULT: 1-2 (Away Win)
ATTACKING STRENGTHS
- Our ability to switch the play on a number of occasions
- Creating a number of goal scoring opportunities
- Getting in behind the opposition defense with our passing and movement
ATTACKING CHALLENGES
- Not being clinical enough in front of goal
- Decision making in the final third
- Too many passes/touches around the opposition’s penalty area when shooting is the better option.
DEFENDING STRENGTHS
- Our ability to stop the opposition creating goal scoring opportunities.
- Excellent work from our wide players to double up on the oppositions wide players.
- Our ability to build from the back.
DEFENDING CHALLENGES
- Caught very high up the field when we lost the ball allowing the opposition to get in behind us when they went long.
- Allowing the opposition too much time on the ball.
- Lack of communication when being pressured from the opposition.
OVERALL COMMENTS
- We created a number of chances but failed to convert. (NEED TO BE CLINICAL)
- Our passing and movement was giving the opposition a number of problems.
- We need to close the opposition down quicker in our half as against other teams we may be punished.
- I would like to see more communication from some our players as at times we had players in excellent areas but failed to ask for the ball.
- We played very well in certain parts of the game and I am asking the players to try and perform consistently for 70 minutes. We need to remember to communicate with each other more often and avoid silly mistakes that lead us to losing possession. In the game we also gave up possession to easily from our throw ins. Also I’d like to see better movement from our attacking players. (Recognize where the space is).
Saturday Lax: Oh man is there a lot here. Just to recap, Cpher played at 9, Matthew at 10, Cpher at 11, Matthew at 1, Matthew at 3. I was at the field from 8:30 to 4:30….it was sunny but windy…never really warmed up or was ‘nice’.
No pictures. No video. Matthew played defense all three games and did a great job at it. We won the first game against Howell 5-4; lost the second to a travel team 3-1 (and that’s a good result, the boys played their butts off) and then blew out Grand Blanc by a lot to a little.
Sunday Soccer: The 2nd of the 3 Jr. State Cup Games, a trip out to Grand Rapids to play Ole. Matthew and ( T ) had played them almost a year and a half ago and I thought beat them quite easily. But not so much this time….we lost 5-3.
There is one big difference between last time and this time. Puberty. They had 6 to 7 kids bigger than our tallest kid. One had a mullet and a mustache. These kids should all be in 6th grade!
Yeah, that kid in the background has at least three to four inches on Matthew.
So they had that going for them. And two of those six or seven were really good along with it and caught on the counter-attack more than once. And the refs did not do us any favors…did not call physical play (elbows elbows elbows) until being chided about at halftime about our coach. Screwed up a simple throw-in call that led to a goal for them; screwed up a simple ball placement call that led to another goal. Oh well, just one of those days I guess…
Boy again rated his performance as a ‘4’….and I’m not sure again if it is that low but we will watch some of the tape…he is lunging and needs to see that to stop it.
Coach Stu Says:
TEAM: 02 Boys Blue VS OLE
RESULT: 5-3 Loss (AWAY)
ATTACKING STRENGTHS
- We played some good entry passes into the striker who held the ball up well but the opposition denied us the pass to play simple through balls.
- Stretched the field offering lots of width
- Got extra players forward to try to create numbers up situations.
- Ran at players, especially in the second half.
- Looked good and worked well with 2 upfront.
ATTACKING CHALLENGES
- We had chances but our first touch let us down and the opposition were fast we did not have the pace to get away with poor touches.
- Poor from set pieces (especially corners today) we must make them count and usually we do.
- Were not able to build the way we usually do and it took us too long to play direct when we had the chance.
DEFENDING STRENGTHS
- Battled well and didn’t shrink away when coming against boys much bigger then yourself.
- Some good individual performances to break down the opposition.
- Held a fairly good line of confrontation and decent offside trap.
DEFENDING CHALLENGES
- Must read the visual cues of the opposition a little better and realize when they are likely to hit the longer ball vs. the shorter ball.
- Today with the opposition being a lot faster we had to recognize quicker the visual cue to drop. Cost us 2 goals today.
- Knowing a little better when to play the player and when to play the ball.
OVERALL COMMENTS
- This was a tough one. We were not at our best due to the elements, playing surface and the fact that the opposition played 3 big players in the middle that stopped us playing the way we wanted too. We were the better team in the first half creating several chances and looking the most dangerous. However goals change games! We missed two great chances and their goalkeeper made two-world class saves. Then we made mistakes at our end and we found ourselves 2 goals down.
- We changed up our style and formation in the second half and it worked for a while, creating chances however we conceded again and this killed us a little. I was very proud that the boys battled on and pulled 3 back but the game was open and this meant they created chances as well and pulled away from us.
- If we think about it 4 goals could have been prevented and 3 the REF Directly effected the goal (pen, offside and handball to score).
- I genuinely think we can learn from this game and it can help us. We have a tough league match this Saturday and a State cup game Sunday so we will see whether we can learn from this game in the next. Visual cues will be essential against Windsor (when to drop when to step).
