That's a wrap!

Soccer season ended on Saturday! Whoo-hoo! Our first winning season!

The Eudora Eagles (named by Evey, all the team got to come up with a name, luck had it we pulled her name out of the hat) got off to a soaring start, going undefeated in their first five games of the season. But then some bad luck, a few bad calls, and a couple nagging injuries down the stretch* cost us the last two games, and we finished the season 5-2.

I was the head coach, our assistant was Brandon. We brought back almost the exact same team from last fall (we lost one kid, and got one new kid). That team went 1-6 last season. So to get to 5-2 was a huge improvement.

The kids drove me crazy at times. It's hard to wrangle a group of 6-, 5- and 4-year-olds. But they were overall a fun group. I know I enjoyed coaching Evey. Heck, I enjoyed coaching most of them.

Evey's season was solid. It was hindered a bit when she fell off the money bars at school... it took her a few weeks to get back on track after that. Her best game was two weeks ago when I gave her a little pep talk on the ride to the field. I told her to play aggressive, and that I wanted her to get no less than 10 kicks on the ball and two shots on goal.

Out of nowhere she accomplished both, in the first quarter! Both shots were good, one hit the post, the other was stopped by the goalie. She didn't score a goal this year, but in all, I think only three different kids scored for our team anyway, so it was a hard year to get the ball in the net for most of the team.

Evey did play some goalie for us, and she did a nice job as GK. But I do think in the field she lost a little of her aggressiveness that she's showed me in previous seasons. It might be because the boys have gotten a little bigger, it might be because she was a step slower with her hurt arm, I don't know. But we'll work together and get back that aggressiveness.

I'm happy to have Saturday mornings back, and I'm happy to not have to worry about practices on Mondays. But I will miss kicking it around with the kids, especially Evey.

But we'll be back for more in the fall!

EAGLES!!!

*I'm joking, of course, but we could have won the last two games as well... we were outplayed a little, and had too many shots hit the post this season. Plus, we had a few deadbeat goalies, and my policy is to let anyone who wants to play goalie get a quarter...