Team Eclipse Kicks it Up

It is that awesome time of year: Fall!  And with fall comes SOCCER SEASON! 

 

We have been blessed with a pretty amazing group of girls and parents.  While we love watching our girls dominate on the field, we are actually pretty laid back and have a few laughs while we cheer our team Eclipse on to victory (and maybe all of us moms like to chat about anything we can think of during practices and sometimes games).

 

We also have a pretty great coach, we call him Daddy :-)

 

Here is my girl, her 7th soccer season! 

(please ignore the highwater shorts, that would be my bad on the tuck job that was corrected before kickoff)

I love this girl so much!!!

 

 

Of course, fall in Texas means 100 degrees outside... at least at the start of our soccer season.  Here are the super awesome siblings, hanging in the shade and trying to stay strong while watching the girls do their thing on the field.  At least we always have yummy snacks to keep them happy! 

 

Now if you follow along over the seasons, you know that KK is a special player (well in my mind she sure is, and its my blog so let's just go with it shall we?).  She loves to score, as any kid does.  But she really loves and shines at her defense.  Something clicked inside her a few seasons ago, and she gets the biggest kick (ha no pun intended) out of chasing the other team down and stopping them cold from scoring.  Last season she was one of our strongest defenders, one of the few who understood how to kick the ball out of bounds to stop the play and avoid the goal if needed (versus the normal reaction of most kids, to just get the ball back to score).  She is also really good about listening to the coaches when she is on the field and doing what she learned in practice.  She is also pretty good about being the example for the team... being a good listener and having Daddy as one of the coaches makes that a must.

 

(Disclaimer as I don't want anyone to think the rest of our team isn't equally awesome: I am by no means claiming she is the star of the team, our team is full of amazing talent and all the girls shine at different times with different skills, these are just KK's skills I am currently pointing out).

Here is KK, not afraid to get into another players way to defend! So far apart from our first two seasons, she now loves the competition and challenge.

She scored two goals in this game!  This is impressive as this is the first season that we have "positions" with one girl as goalie and one girl hanging back as a defender.  With goalies, our girls were all thrown a little off balance.  Last season there wasn't a person in the goal box who could scoop that ball up with their hands and stop you cold.  So scoring at all is impressive, but twice in one game - that is down right AMAZING!  GO KK!

We do tell KK each game how proud we are of her ability to share with her teammates and support them.  She will never attempt to steal the ball from her teammate, her reaction is to follow them and help them as much as they need.  I love seeing that in her, it doesn't always mean she gets the ball as much or the chance to score as much as others.  But it does mean that she is learning something more important: that being a teammate is more important that getting a goal. 

I like this shot as you can see Coach Daddy in the background, watching his girl do her thing.

 

Here is the 2nd goal she made, I just got the shot of her running after she kicked it in... I was cheering a little too loud at the time to remember to snap a picture :-)

 

So despite the crazy hot humid hour we spent out there on the field, it was a wonderful game.  All the girls did great and played so well together and most importantly they had FUN.  KK gets to play goalie next game, which I have a feeling will be awesome to watch since that defender in her shines so bright.  I can't wait to see Team Eclipse in action next week! Stay tuned!  AJ will be joining the blog too as he takes the field in his second season of soccer.

 

Sweet dreams y'all!

 

PS... not that we keep score, but our team totally won.  So far, undefeated.  But you didn't hear that from me!