U6 Sharks Return to Form. U8 Sharks Continue Run of Fine Play.

     First, my thanks for Mike Seng for covering for me at the U4 game.  I hear the team played well again.  That has become a very strong group of players.
     Thanks to Coach Ben for running the U6 Sharks through their pre-game routine.  He certainly got them motivated to play.  What I saw from them Saturday was some of their best play yet.  Special congratulations to Micah for picking up a goal.  He was really on fire this week and found himself in the right position repeatedly.
     The U8 Sharks played beautifully in another great game.  Before the game I asked them all to show me how they do a "pull-back", a basic ball control technique.  When we were sure they all had it Mike and I let them know that we expected to see them all try it at least once during the game and if they didn't do at least one "pull-back" they'd owe us two the next game.  The idea is to keep them focused on stretching their skill set rather than on getting wins.  I want to see them all progressing at about the same rate and by keeping them focused on those individual skills I hope to avoid having anyone getting left behind or hanging back from being involved in our attack as a team.  Well a lot of them did try to demonstrate that move and frequently it was at sort of the wrong time strategically, which I think is a good thing.  That means that they were able to get their heads out of the rush of the game just long enough to think about performing this task we'd set for them and I think that when they can do that they can get to the point where the game slows down for them a bit.  By the way, Zachary and Jackson owe  me two pull-backs next week.

The star this week was Sam A. who managed his first goal in U8.  Sam just gets right in the thick of things and always knows which way to the goal.  We had great play from everyone this week with the scoring spread out among several players.  Austin had the first, then we had goals from Drew (3), Sam A., Sam E. (2) and another from Jackson late.  We had very good midfield play again from Zachary and Daylon and a lot of great ball control from everyone at both ends of the field.  I have some video below (it's a bit shaky) that shows some of the scoring and other good plays.  We added a player this week, James, and you'll see in the video that he nearly turns a rebound on one of Sam's shots into his first goal.  There's also a clip of Elizabeth attempting something close to a bicycle kick.  Crazy!