Our U10 Girls Team 2 Red had their own rust to shake off just like our Team 1 Black. They had their first game a couple weeks ago and did great with outstanding individual effort by Kelsey, Elissa and Caitlyn.
It was their first ever outing together and they even came out on top with a win so I believe there were high expectations this past Saturday and I had to reassure the girls after both games this was not about the final score and only about what they each did today, which made them a better soccer player than they were the last time they played.
Our home field is more of an appropriate size field and this was much different from the smaller field we played on in our first game. This along with the warmer weather challenged the girls.
In our first game, a couple weeks ago, the girls were able to all chase after the ball a bit, or as what you may hear me call swarming the ball, and the small field forgave them for their enthusiasm. The bigger fields start to tell them , "nuh-uh" and they eventually learn to pull back and move into the 1st attacker/2nd attacker and 1st defender/2nd defender mode we talk about.
Throughout both games I saw wonderful individual work and a real effort to try some of the things we have worked on recently. I also saw some smart individual awareness on the field.
Caitlyn once again showed me how much of a passion she has to compete and is relentless out on the field. While it may look like she is head down much of the time, she is quickly picking up some on field awareness as highlighted by her decision on our attacking 18 to make a thoughtful pass backward to Elissa after she saw she was not going to be able to make it past the oncoming defenders. This was great because it created space for Elissa to move up after the defenders were drawn away and push it forward for a team goal.
We are also fortunate to have a second team member who has a similar drive like Caitlyn. Eva picked it up a notch during the second game when everyone was getting worn down. She told me during a sub out how she just couldn't get the ball in the goal even after numerous attempts. I told her to have patience and keep doing what she was doing and it would come, which it did. On a very similar setup as Josie on Team 1, Eva had a physical encounter with the keeper, but pushed through it and was quick to pick herself up and score. She was pretty sore after it and was back and forth the remainder of the game about going back in, but we decided she had enough and to let her teammates finish it out.
There were many other individual displays of effort. Sophie was putting on some good defensive work running back ahead of the play and taking it away from oncoming attackers. Mckenzie had a great run down the field doing her thing, methodically making her way through defenders for a goal and Maya stood tough after some bent fingers in goal and came back out on the field to play.
Probably my most entertaining moment of the afternoon was the big smile I got from Sophia who had been attempting to get a successful Stop Hop and Play off and she did one right next to me. I casually said to her, "I saw that!" and she stopped and turned with a big smile. I then had to let her know the other team was sneaking past while she enjoying the recognition. She had a surprised, "OH!", and promptly got back after it.
Great job to everyone this past weekend and thanks to Karolyn and Mckenzie for helping out.
As a final note, we almost had a team name picked out Saturday and then backed away from it because it took too long in the huddle to say.
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