Livewire & Comets State League games & a few updates

Livewires 6-1 win
Comets 8-0 win

I'm not going to go into a great deal of detail here. The girls played with a great deal of heart and character and while the weather was extremely uncomfortable. They did not let it impact them while they were on the field. I only counted one real break down during the day when we failed to clear the ball and gave up a goal when we had a number of opportunities to do so.

One of the things that we have been focusing on in practice since the Hurricane cup has been finishing when were inside the 18 as well as taking shots off the drop. The scoring was very balanced. We scored off break aways, drops from the mid field and more importantly we have been scoring off the set plays from corners and free kicks. We have 3 set plays we run during corner kicks. Each set play has several variations but we scored of each of the set plays.

I think one could argue how competitive our competition was, however, we were able to execute both offensively and defensively against an opponent that was giving us their all.

I really like how the Livewires play. They played hard and never quit. We did a great job as a team of owning the middle which allowed us to control both games. But we did it with more than just our center mids. Paige and Ellen probably played the strongest games I have seen our forwards play. They put so much pressure on the opponents defenders that they struggled to clear the ball cleanly and many times picked their pockets creating break aways or setting up our outsides for runs. This is what we have been working on for a long time and have had different levels of success during the fall but they ran it perfectly during these games. They mixed it up real well and made great passes. Just an over all complete game.

Our outside mids and defenders ran real well also. They did a great job of setting up the over laps for each other and we crossed the ball well inside the 18.

Defensively everyone played very smart and with a great deal of hustle. I like our defensive movement right now. We are moving very well without the ball and starting our movement two to three passes away working to get in position. This is how we are able to pass the ball around the back. Its also helping us stretch the defense so that we can work in our transition game. The girls are getting more and more comfortable with doing this.

I put alot of restrictions on the girls during these two games, in the past when I had put on restrictions we struggled keeping possession of the ball but during these games they did very well of working the ball and then making it happen once they had the ok to attack.

Were one week in to our two week break. Hopefully everyone is enjoying the break but staying active if possible. I ran into Mango and AJ at the Tiger game and they wore me out about not seeing them for a week . I am also getting occasional text messages from a player or two and I know they are staying in touch with each other.

Were working on trying to decide on the team Christmas party so we will have that shortly. The girls also want to do a team building at Fast Lane so we may combine the two.

We finally have the warm ups ordered, this has been a difficult process to work through with the club. Thanks to a donation from Tina the warm ups are paid for. The only thing we will need to pay for will be the embroidery which is going to be about $30 per set Mark is trying to see if we can get it cheaper but were not having much luck. We are going to get the names and the team name on the Jackets with the #'s on the pants.

We will send a note out on the specifics when we have them.
We should also have our long sleeve jerseys in the next week or so. A big thank you to Jay and Michelle for the sponsorship for these. We will have them just in time for the January and February league games.

Mark and I are working on the Spring schedule. I want to get that to you as soon as possible so you can plan.

I will begin working on the fall summary as well as player evals which we will do during the December practices.

More to come as I get caught up.
thanks
Doug