I have been mentioning soccer on and off for a couple of weeks now, but have never fully delved into what soccer translates into in our household. The long and short of it is, soccer is our entire Fall. It starts the weekend after Labor Day and goes until mid-November. Belle and Lily both play on a team and each girl's team plays one game Saturday and one game on Sunday.
For those of you doing the math, we are looking at four games per weekend for roughly ten weeks. That is forty soccer games. Forty trips to and from the soccer field. Forty trips to the soccer field lugging two chairs and lots of other miscellaneous soccer crap. Forty trips to the soccer field filled up with snacks and juices, water and Gatorade. Forty requests for candy and other treats at the snack shack. Forty, forty, forty, that is alot of soccer games.
Soccer in our town is a major doing. The league consisted of fifty seven soccer teams and had a headcount of over seven hundred and fifty kids that participated.
Drew and I are the type of parents that go to every. single. game. We watch, cheer and enjoy our girls running around competing while learning about teamwork. A large part of the enjoyment and perhaps the prime motivation in signing the girls up for sports, is watching them run up and down the field and inside secretly hoping that when we arrive home they are so tired they can barely walk....that never happened once.
Drew and I have both come from athletic backgrounds and we have a sincere belief in the fundamentals that are taught through sports. I was able to stay out of a great deal of trouble in my younger years by participating in my sport. I had a respect for my body and always treated it in a way that allowed me to perform at the level that was necessary.
The same goes for Drew. Drew was a football player and the physical demands on his mind and body were huge. Soccer and now basketball, are time commitments that we are happy to make. There are of course those weekends, which I do believe I have bitched about here before, where it all just gets to be too much.
Belle's team performed well the entire season and in many games were the team to beat. They had a husband and wife coaching team which proved to be a highly effective duo with the kids. They had just the right mix of positivity and encouragement. They were dedicated and genuinely cared about the girls. They didn't only play the good players. They rotated each and every girl into and out of each and every position. They were focused on the big picture of what soccer should be and not just caught up in winning every game.
Turns out Belle's team made the playoffs. They played the playoff game last Sunday at 9am. They played an extremely exciting game and emerged victorious. Because rain had played a role in ruining a few playing days, they had to play the championship game that very same night. It started at five o'clock which thanks to daylight savings is quite dark at this time of year in New York. So they played the game under the lights.
Let me tell you, THIS WAS AN EXCITING GAME. The sidelines were packed with parents and friends watching the much anticipated championship game. There were some spectators very excited for us and other spectators very excited to hopefully see us lose. As I have previously stated, soccer in our town is taken quite seriously.
The game, the night, the whole day was perfect. The perfect ending to a great season. Each girl reached from deep within and played their hearts out. Each girl played their season best. My little Belle, who has had her defensive gem moments, had a phenomenal play (coaches words, I swear), where she ran into our unattended goal and blocked a shot on goal, kicking it clear into mid- field.
This is a game we will not soon forget. We followed it up with pizza then ice cream with the whole team. What a great experience for Belle, as well as Lily, as she too participated in all of the festivities that followed that Championship game under those sparkling lights.