Fall 2009 Soccer

Kaylen is now three weeks into soccer. She's actually doing outdoor soccer this year. She's on a team with other 1st and 2nd graders.

It's amazing how much of a difference it makes just moving to outdoors, but then someone mentioned that the grass slows down the ball from what it was on a hard gym floor - duh! There are times where all the girls are kicking it as hard as they can and then chasing after it in a mob, but they are getting better at actually dribbling it (shorter kicks as they run). They still have some work to do on learning to us the teamwork to their advantage though.

Today's game there were a few stints where they kept going out of bounds, so they need to also work on their not kicking when they're near the lines until they're positioned correctly. They were better today at being goalies and at the stopping when the ref blew his whistle. I'm still not clear on when the ball goes out the ends why sometimes they do a kick from the goal box and sometimes they throw it in from the corner circle. Maybe I'll have to look that up! :)

At any rate, it's keeping her (and me!) busy with practices two times per week, and games on Saturdays. They've had 2 games so far, and have 4 remaining - although Kaylen will probably miss the last one because we'll be walking for Race for the Cure. Unless of course, they have poor weather one of the next three weeks and it gets rescheduled for the week after Race for the Cure.

Kaylen is doing really well, and is enjoying it - and we're enjoying watching. Last week Kaylen's team didn't get any goals, but had a couple scored on them. Kaylen saved one but then the other team got another shot right away and she wasn't paying attention - I guess she was thinking that if she threw it back out once she had a little time. She did get two shots on goal later in the game when she wasn't playing goalie, but the other team's goalie at the time was really good.

This week Kaylen was again goalie the first quarter and again saved one but one got through. But then later in the game she scored 2 (or maybe 3?) goals! She would have probably had another one, but she realized about 3/4 of the way down the field that she was going the wrong way - it was after halftime when they'd switched sides - she had such the determined, focused look on her face when she went past us, it really was too bad. But all was well - her team got it right back down the field again.

I'm glad they don't keep score at this age, although I have a hard time keeping track of even just Kaylen's things. Oh well. Soon enough they'll be talking about winning/losing and the attitudes that go with it, instead of just having fun and learning the game.

So much fun! A few pictures...
Team pictures:
Cheering her team from the goalie box:
Two shots she had - one went left, the other the goalie caught:
I forgot my camera today, or else I might have more fun pictures. :(