This season has been tough for the Eagles. They lost two long time players to a traveling team, an assistant coach to a military move, then moved up a division so not only had to replace those players but also add a few more to fill out the roster and the field (they now play with the full number of players on the team and use the entire field). It really is a huge field and has taken some getting used to. The league didn't have enough teams in their division so they merged Kyle's division with the U14 division which had quite a few more teams and the Eagles ended up playing with boys twice their size. I've never seen kids so big. They lost a lot of games this season, not by much, by the Eagles aren't used to losing. I'd say it has been good for them but it's been pretty tough on 12/13 year old boys. Overall, the older boys, besides being much larger, where really rough. I mean brutes. It wasn't enough to be just aggressive soccer players, they had to hit, kick, push, etc. Not good sports. I was pretty shocked. But again, super glad for an awesome coach that taught his team to continue to play hard, but fair. No need to sink to their level.
Just like Abbie, Kyle truly has the greatest coach. We've stuck with him since the beginning. Kyle started playing with Coach Brian so long ago that we can't even remember now. He is the best mix of tough and fair. He can be hard on the boys but only when he knows they aren't doing their best, not because he is obsessed with winning. And he wouldn't tolerate it if the parents were. But when he hands out a compliment, those boys shine. Finding a great coach is like winning the lottery.
Brian asked the boys if they wanted to enter the tournament this weekend and they all decided they wanted to, even if their chances weren't great. Yesterday's games were at 8:15 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. and were COLD. Crazy cold. They lost the first game but tied the second, against a team they've never beat before. The Ref was nuts...seriously crazy. He was calling all kinds of nutty things and ended the game 10 minutes early because he claimed the team kept making him blow his whistle to stop the game for penalties, etc. Anyway, who knows what would have happened in that last 10 minutes but the boys were proud of their efforts. They advanced to an 8:40 semi-final this morning and possibly another game at 12:30 today but since we don't play Sundays I'm not sure what happened.
The girls kept themselves busy by sticking zip-ties in Tripp's hat and playing dolls on the blanket. Two games in one day is about their limit.
We love soccer and are thankful for such a great team and coach but are pretty glad the season is over and are looking forward to a few weeks off before spring training begins.
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