Last night was a good night for soccer. The sun was just setting at Our Lady of Victory fields as Team Chudleigh’s prepared for the game. We knew it was going to be a hard one seeing the size of the players on the opposing team, but our kids were not intimidated in the least.
Theyve learned a lot over the first few weeks of the season. Gary and I have worked on a number of essentials to soccer with them including the importance of passing and staying in position. Last night all of that paid off.
The final score ended up being 5-3 for us securing our first win but I saw a few things in our team that was much more important than the score. One of our best players Matthew is a bit smaller in stature than most of the players, but in this case the other team had a much bigger crew. There were a few times Matthew along with Anthony and some others, got knocked around. That kind of stuff happens in soccer and will probably happen again.
As the game started to wind down I went to him and said dont worry about being knocked down, lets get a goal. And with that, we did. Nathan made an amazing pass up field to an open Matthew and bing….right in the net. Our team set up for the opposing kick off after the goal and I went to each of them and said, “Lets do it again.” Jordan turned to me and said “Im tired, coach” but she got right back in there and was running up the field to stay in the open.
Sure enough another key pass and shortly after another goal securing our victory…the first one of the season. We had some key goaltending from Ethan as well who showed off his toughness with his newly cropped mohawk haircut. 🙂 Everyone of our players put in a ton of effort. Sunju had some key defensive saves in our end as well as Kyle. They all showed hustle and everyone of them deserved this win.
More important than that our team showed heart and determination far beyond their years. Everyone of those kids deserves a big high five and they never gave up and stayed focused. Another one of our players Nicholas hurt his foot and couldnt play, but he showed up to cheer on his team. Last night I have never been more proud of our team. Not because of the score, but they are doing two important things coaches want them to do…learn the game, and having fun.