My apologies to the Tigers and the Thunder for missing your games. I hear they were good ones. Coach Stacie was really impressed with how the Thunder comported themselves and I hear they had a 3-0 victory. There were goals for Carson, Juan and Molly. Molly! What a transformation she's made since the beginning of the season. She always works hard at practice on picking up the basic skills but in the games she has of late become so aggressive in getting to the ball. We've seen from the very first game the difference in play between aggressive, confident players like Brooke and Juan who are engaged in the game constantly and players whose interest ebbs and flow with the game so that sometimes they clearly know what's going on but other times... Well, Molly has definitely made the jump into that upper group and with her speed and length she will become a formidable player. I also hear we had excellent work in keeper again from our solid corp of goalies. Great game Thunder. Thanks Coach Stacie.
This week was the much anticipated meeting of the Polar Bears and the Sharks. Coach Chris and I were really expecting the Bears to have a good game this week because they've been showing so much improvement over the course of the session and they have, as a team, developed a really good work habit at practice. They generally show up and get down to business and that is a wonderful thing. Carson is our leader in that respect. He always arrives at practice or at games focused and ready to go. But while there was a lot of very good individual play from the Bears they were, overall, overwhelmed by the attack of the Sharks. Mason did his best in defense and we had good keeper play from Dylan, Carson, Micah and Jeremy but the Sharks are a more experienced team and they have of late begun to really play like a team so you see a lot of cooperation, a lot of ball movement and a lot of anticipation from them. They're hard to stop. (See more on their performance in the post below.)
Ava and Ashley both played brilliantly on the attack for the Bears with some fantastic runs into Shark territory. Ashley managed to get completely through the defense on one beautiful run and just missed the goal with an excellent shot from about three yards out. These two girls are an interesting contrast. Ashley has great natural touch on the ball and is developing her ball handling skills rapidly but her interest in the game is sometimes on and off. Ava on the other hand is still working on developing some basic skill with the ball but her intensity during games is amazing. It's like she can't see anything but the ball. And she's fearless! We are going to try to have these two on the field together more from now on as I think they can both be good influences on the other. Everyone on the team can learn from watching Ashley's precise attention to controlling the ball and everyone can learn from the example that Ava sets in terms of focus. She hears that whistle blow and it's game on!
I want to say that I was really impressed with how the Bears kept their heads up and kept playing hard without showing any real frustration. And they did this in a game where some of the Sharks were rudely running their mouths about the score. I apologize for that and it won't happen again. The Bears know what it's all about. You love the game so you keep playing and give the other side all you've got. Well done Bears.
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