First Weekend of Tournament Play.

I watched some very good games during this weekend's first round of our tournament.  The intensity level in the games was great and you could see that the kids were into it.  In game after game I saw kids playing with a lot of heart and full effort while maintaining a spirit of good sportsmanship and fair competition.  It's a fine balance that we want to see, between competitive intensity and mindfulness that we are, after all, playing a game.  I occasionally hear a parent or Coach telling their team that "it's not about winning."  Well...yes and no.  A game that you loose, even by a large margin, can be a good game, but the goal is to win.  You want the kids to have the competitive fire in them, to want to win.  What we hope to develop in them is a love of competition, of testing themselves and their teammates to compete with commitment even in situations where they might know a loss is likely.  So, it's not simply about winning, but it is about competing.

I've posted this before but it's worth a repeat:




The point is obvious: to win you have to show up and keep trying.  My thanks to all of our Coaches for trying to bring that lesson to the kids and my thanks to the kids for putting everything they have into the game.
The round one game in U10 I between Coach Lett's team and Coach Cook's team was a perfect example of this.  The game was close from whistle to whistle but Coach Cook was finally pulling away in the end thanks to some brilliant play from his team with Trey leading the way.  He and Summer, Alex and Jaxon kept working the ball, trusting their skills.  But Coach Lett's team played with great skill too and never conceded a single ball.  The courageous and intense play of that team, especially in the final minutes was fantastic.  I had a field-side view of Cassie on Coach Lett's team driving the ball down the wall in the final moments of the game, crashing through players and maintaining possession of the ball.  She had the look of a player who was going to will her way to the goal and not concede until the ref blew the whistle.  It was beautiful.
Hopefully we'll have more of the same this coming weekend.  See you on the field.