TheCalabrias.com

Soccer season is back y’all…and the Green Team had another great start — despite all the changes.

Only 3 of the 12 players from last season’s undefeated team have returned: Lorenzo, Hunter, and Rylan. The new team is now mostly composed of younger kids who have recently moved up from U8 — the Under 8 league.  Needless to say, we have a very young U10 group this time around.  We do, however, have a very promising group, and all the kids did very well on their first match.

We played the Black team on Game #1– which happens to be the kids from Lorenzo’s school.  Of all the matches, I’ve notice he always seems to work a bit harder against the Black team.  I would suspect there is probably a bit of “bragging rights” at stake.  With so many younger players, it was nice (and fun)  to see the 3 “veterans” to step up and become the captains of the team.  Lorenzo even played as goal-keeper to help with the defense — which is something I unsuccessfully tried to persuade him to do the entire last season.

We started well and finished the first quarter ahead, Green 2 x 0 Black. Hunter scored both goals on a typical “Hunter-faster-counter-attack” followed by two big shots. On the other end, Lorenzo did a great job at goal stopping two strong shots from the Black team’s offense.  And after moving to mid-field, he scored two other goals, giving the Green team a 4 x 0 lead by half-time. The first after taking advantage of a poor punt from the Black team’s keeper, and the second after following up on his own penalty kick shot, which was blocked by the keeper.

The team continued to play well, and they had several other opportunities (and near-misses) during the second half.  Lorenzo added a fifth goal on the fourth quarter after a fast break away and a well placed shot to the right of the goal.  Nice. (He has certainly not lost his touch!)

Final score: Green 5 x 0 Black.

I must add, Coach Matt did a great job getting the team to learn their positions and stay at their zones.

Photos:http://www.flickr.com/photos/calabria/sets/72157607353786005/