Fall Soccer Season

I've been meaning for quite awhile to write about our soccer season this fall, but never seemed to get around to it. It finally wrapped up about a week ago and the kids had a season-end banquet this past Monday where they even got trophies!!! (Cheap plastic gold-painted things, but the kids thought they were great. Anyway, for the most part it was a really fun season. Kalen coached Lynnsey's team (The Polar Bears) and is officially retiring from that job now. Actually Lynnsey is retiring from soccer as well. At least for the spring season and then we'll reassess. She loved going to practices but when it came to game days she just had terrible stage fright and it was all we could do to get her to move at all. Finally, she became the official "throw-inner" of the team because that was one thing that she was willing to do. This photo below is actually a rare moment when I think she forgot that she wasn't going to play and she really kicked that ball hard. Actually, she has some pretty great natural talent, if she'd only forget about the audience and really get into the game. Oh well. Maybe after missing out next spring, she'll decide to give it another try.

Taylor's season was interesting. He ended up on quite a large soccer team but it was the only one for his age group in Albion so they had no one to play against. They kept trying to set something up with teams from a couple of nearby towns, but couldn't ever get anything together. So finally they just decided to split up and play each other. Kalen was the assistant coach for Taylor's team and really loved coaching that age group so he volunteered to be a second coach next season so that they can actually have two teams here in town. Anyway, all the pictures I took of this game came out blurry. Probably a combination of Kaya "helping" me hold the camera and a nice balmy temperature of 38 degrees! (They hadn't come up with a name for their team yet, so that day they decided to call themselves "The Icicles".) It was a fun game to watch though. The other coach couldn't make it to that game, so Kalen filled in and he told Taylor that he wanted him to try playing forward. Well, Taylor didn't like that at all! He said he was only good at playing mid-fielder and there was no way that he would play forward. But Kalen (as coach, not dad) made him do it anyway, and he was absolutely phenomenal! The only reason that he didn't score a goal was because the kid playing goalie was a very large and exceptional goalie. So I think Taylor really gained some confidence in his abilities from that and said he actually had a great time playing that position. It'll be fun next season to see how he continues to improve.

And finally Kendall of The Blue Jays. He is just SO much fun to watch because he has such a love of the game. When he's playing, he's oblivious to anything else. My favorite thing is to watch him trying to act as if it's no big deal after he scores a goal, but he usually can't contain that great big smile for very long. He had a great season and a really good coach who taught the kids a lot. His favorite postition and the one he is definitely best at is forward. And this is one sport where I think his small size is a bonus because he can really maneuver in and out and around the other players before they even know he was there. This picture was taken right after Kendall scored a goal and still had his nonchalant face on while another teammate gave him five. Right after that though, that smile popped out anyway.

Can't wait for next season!