Soccer: Season Preview and Week One Recap

Well the school year has officially started and with it has come the beginning of soccer season. I'm pumped up for another year of soccer and looking forward to a great season. I'm playing soccer in Lafayette again for a homeschool team called the Tippecanoe Tornadoes. We have a pretty strong team this year with about thirteen guys who could play for a public high school. There are twenty five kids on the team and we are pretty solid about sixteen or eighteen deep. We had our first games last weekend, a doubleheader.

We played against homeschool teams from Terra Haute and Kokomo. We came into the games with only about half a team. We were missing eight players including four starters either because of vacations or injuries. Paul sprained his ankle the day before and was on crutches at the game. The first game against Terra Haute was more or less a disaster. We gave up five goals in the first half as our defense played poorly and our goalie was caught out of position a couple times. I started out playing sweeper a position I haven't played at all in high school and didn't do much of anything to help out. After we got down 3-o I got the coaches to move me to center midfield a position I feel much more at home at. We went into halftime down 5-1. We came out and put together a good second half but the damage was already down and we ended up losing 6-2. I did pick up an assist in the second half with a nice left footed pass to a open teammate at the top of the goal box. Asher made a nice shot to pull us within 5-2 but that was as close as we got.

We came into the second game against Kokomo more focused and without the butterflies we had before our opening match. We mixed up our lineup a bit for the game and played a much better game. We were crisp and attacked the goal. We scored two goals in the first seven minutes of the game and jumped out to a 3-1 halftime lead. Our goalie Andrew even picked up an assist with a long punt to Nathan for a goal. We continued to attack in the second half of the game and in the 48th minute I got my first goal of the season. I took a short pass from the top of the goal box, set up and drilled a low shot past the goalie for a 4-1 lead. That ended up being the final score as our defense stood strong and our offense was not able to get the ball back in the net despite several good chances. I nearly added a second goal later in the game but missed the post by less than a foot with a low line drive shot. We have a doubleheader tomorrow in Kokomo against Kokomo and Fort Wayne. We should have a full team for the matches and I'm looking forward to an exciting afternoon.

I'm also coaching soccer again this year. I'm coaching a U-13 team in Covington. We've got a pretty good team in what should be a wide open league. There are five teams in the league with four of them being almost equal and all four having good chances of winning the title. We play a 12 game season and the best team will probably have at least three losses. We opened our year with a preseason tournament two weeks ago. We played a good and hard fought game, waking up after a tired first half but ended up losing 2-0 to the eventual tourney champions. We went in to halftime tied at zero. In the second half we gave up two goals to fall behind by two, we got one back with a goal with a minute left in the game but ran out of time to tie the game. Last weekend we opened the season with a 2-0 win over another team in the league. We controlled the ball and dominated most of the game but struggled to get the ball in the net. The other team's goalie made some excellent saves and we fail to capitalize on a few other good opportunities Ironically, both the goals we scored went through the goalkeeper's legs and into the goal. This weekend we play the tourney champs again. We have the talent to beat them and if we do we it would give us a great confidence boost and make us the team to beat.

That's all from me for now. It's getting late and I got to get some sleep before tomorrow. I'll let you know how the games go. Also keep your eyes open for blogs about school and the start of football season. See ya later

Daniel