Darren Copeland

After the epic 3-3 draw last Tuesday, including our giving up the tying goal with :14.8 seconds left to go in the game, our team is at home this afternoon. The other team doesn’t have a great record, but they have given other teams some good games. We better not have a let down.

I got on them yesterday, because in practice, they don’t always give everything they have, don’t go full speed, and tend to slack. They also don’t do all their running as hard as they ought to do. We’ll see if this lecture leads to better effort.

Additionally, we’ve had some kids become ineligible. I had younger kids become ineligible earlier, but the juniors (our oldest grade) got their progress reports yesterday. I lost one, maybe two for the season, and another (one of my captains), for at least two weeks (At least my goalie, who was close to failing some classes, stayed eligible). The good news is I may get one back either today or Monday, but I still have to bring up some JV kids for today’s game. I brought up three, and made sure a fourth (who I’d brought up earlier, but couldn’t make the games) would be there. They may have to play, and they need to step up.

This game will get us back to .500 on the season, as well as in our district. It will also keep our faint shot of making the state playoffs still alive. It will also break our three game win-less streak (two losses and a tie in our last three).

We should win, but I’ve said that before….

UPDATE:  The good news is my captain, and leading goal scorer stepped up, but the bad news is we didn’t take the other team seriously.  The result?  A 5-5 tie.  Who says soccer isn’t high scoring.

We went down 2-0 then up 4-2, then down 5-4, before tying it in the waning minutes.  My captain was a stud, scoring all five goals.  It would be nice if he had passed once in awhile, he might have had 2 assists and a win.

It’s a learning process, and we have to learn how to win as a team, not as a bunch of individuals on the same team.  We need to win our last three games to assure ourselves of a winning record.  A great accomplishment, considering how many chances we’ve squandered this season.  That being said, we still have a lot of work to take care of.