Soccer girl!!

We had a great fall season with USA Soccer on Team Cheetah’s! Our team rocked it and rocked it hard all season. We even won a game or two, not that anyone was keeping score.

We joined up with my brother Jason’s neighborhood team. I must say, my brother has great neighbors. They really are a special group of really fun and nice people.

Alyssa’s coach John Coons was seriously the best coach anyone could ask for. He showed up to every Wednesday night practice and ran the kids hard teaching them drills and playing games.

Alyssa was noticed by all the other parents as having a smile on her face the ENTIRE time she played.

She had an absolute ball under Coach Coons.

Speaking of the Coach, his son is on our team too. His name is Atticus. He is the tiniest little person I have ever seen. I must say despite his small size, the boy has an incredible knack for moving the ball. I enjoyed all season long watching him run up and down the field his big uniform drowning his little body. He looked like a running pile of laundry moving up the field. Adorable. Atticus wasn’t the only adorable player. We got to know and love each of the nine member team.

Best photos of the season:

Kicking Drills before the game.

The huddle where they call the plays...

Proud of herself after stopping the other teams goal. She proved to be quite the little defender.

Playing hard. Always running after the ball.

The highlights of the season for me where when, A. Alyssa scored a goal (her only goal for the season) at the first game. No parent could have ever been prouder. I seriously went ballistic over it. Looking back it was a little much probably. 2. This was really a low point, but it proved to show Alyssa just how tough she could be, so I’m still counting it as a highlight…so this BIG boy from the opposing team, who was huge by the way, like so big I almost asked to see his long form birth certificate. I hear those take a long time to round up though. Anyway. At point blank range, he kicked the ball as hard as he could right into her face (this was unintentional I’m sure). It hit her right over the eye and ricochet off her and smacked her cousin right in the face too. Both girls came off the field bawling. I can’t blame them.

I held her for a few minutes while she cried. The coach came over to check on them and congratulated them for having the first “headers” of the season. A few minutes after that, both girls despite saying they’d never play again were back on the field running and seeking the ball. It was great.

And D. Was when we were playing the best team in the league and they were smearing us. One of their two incredible players made a dirty move and pulled Alyssa to the ground just as she was about to kick the ball. I loved her reaction. She went down, but she took the big boy down with her. Not only that, but she knew he was the best player, so she held him down so he couldn’t get back up. She had an enormous smile on her face the whole time. She knew exactly what she was doing. Her illegal hold gave little Atticus enough time to go and snag the ball away and head down toward our goal. After the game was over she volunteered to me that she held him down on purpose because she knew he was the best player and she was a good “defender.”

We had several family home evenings where we played ball and practiced some skills in the backyard. It was really very fun for the whole family.

I am so glad that the soccer season is only half over. We get another season this spring. Everyone pray for warm weather and an early spring. These games and practices are too fun to miss. I'll miss our Wednesday night practices now that it gets dark at noon.