Winter Finals.

You'll have to forgive me for not posting sooner after the weekend's games.  I was really happy with how everyone played in the final game of the session but I'm a little busy with organizing the next session and managing what's left of the tournament so I didn't get to put down my thoughts on the teams right away.

In the U4 game William and Hunter both managed goals.  Real goals.  Not accidental goals.  In each case they got possession of the ball, kept it close and moved through traffic toward the goal and in the end finished with a tap in.  I tried to impress on them both that what they'd done looked easy, like they should do it all the time.  Keep your fingers crossed.
We were shorthanded in that game and so William and Hunter, Ruby, Sammy and Ava had to play the whole game.  That seemed to be good for them.  Hopefully this next session all of our U4 teams will be smaller.  The more playing time the better.  Ruby was dominant, always possessing the ball rather than kicking it.  She'll be moving up to U6 now.  I don't think she'll have too much trouble there either.

In the titanic struggle between the Sharks and Polar Bears we tried mixing the teams a bit at first by putting Samuel in as keeper for the Bears.  He was great about doing that for me, a real good sport.  And he's an amazing keeper too.  In the next quarter Zychick came in and played beautifully.  He gets right down on the ball to make those stops and seems unafraid of the players charging in at him.
We saw lots of good ball movement from the Sharks with some crazy good dribbling from Samuel and Diego.  Ashley and Abby tried to get some of that going too and they played well.  The overall highlight of the game was a break-away goal by Micah.  He got into the clear from the Bears' side of the field and headed toward the other goal with no one in front of him but the keeper.  The beautiful thing was that even though he took off at full speed he made nice soft touches on the ball to keep it close to him.  When he reached the penalty box he was flying but the ball was right at his feet so it was an easy thing to zip a low shot to the keeper's left and into the net.  That was his best moment of the session and I hope he can carry that with him into the next.

The U8 Sharks played valiantly against an incredibly tough opponent and managed one goal, Conner's with an assist from Sam E, I think.  We had very good play in keeper from Nathan and Zachary against an opponent that had many players who could shoot with power.  The overall effort from everyone of the Sharks was really good and I was happy with the spirit they showed.  They never let up in that game and there was plenty of quality play.  That's all I need to see.  Just keep trying to do the things that we've worked on and don't fall into playing in a panic.  It'll all come together eventually.

This has been a great session and I want to thank all the players for the hard work they've done.