Charles’ game this week was at 9 AM again. The turnout was a little thinner — the other team only had four players show at the start and neither team had a coach. To avoid not playing at all, we loaned Charles to the other team, which in hindsight was a mistake. Charles dominated the play for the other side, even scoring a goal. He was switched to defense for the second quarter which basically stopped his real team’s offense.
After the half, a couple of other players for the opponents arrived and Charles was traded back, but it was too late by then because the new players were the good players for the team, were fresh, and Charles was now tired. In fact, his whole team was tired. There was contention for who got to sit out, which seemed a bit backwards. Normally it’s two of the weaker kids who want out, but this time it was them and two of the better kids. Still, Charles’ team held them to just one more goal. I also thought they were doing better on offense, despite not scoring, with fewer single player attacks which just get overwhelmed by the defense.
Corwin had a shorter game because Mom thought the game was at 11:30 but it was really at 10:15. I just happened to notice that the team playing on a field looked a lot like Corwin’s team as I was leaving with Charles. I zipped on home, got Corwin, and returned during the half time break so it wasn’t a total loss.
Although I only saw the second half, it seemed a better game with both sides playing well. Corwin’s team definitely had it more together than the previous week. Corwin was about the same — he played defense for his half with Jake as goalie. He played excellent defense when he was in position but he just needs more hustle to get in to position more often. Corwin got a good number of return kicks and did well on positioning when the attacker broke past him (splitting with teammates to cover the goal and non-goal sides). He does need to be a little less confident of his ball handling against multiple opponents and try clearing to the side instead of trying to break around the attackers a bit more frequently.
One of the players took a ball in the face so hard that her glasses were smashed. She kept playing but you could it had a negative effect on her game. Nevertheless, the team was able to hold on for a 3-2 victory.
