Tag: cross country (Page 2 of 3)

Winding Down the Seasons

October 9, 2017 / DB

The last big, kid sports weekend of the fall is in our rearview mirror.

C ran at the City championships on Saturday. That’s where she ran the best race of her life a year ago to finish 6th in the 3rd/4th grade race. This year it was much warmer and very windy, so not ideal running conditions. But coming off the 5th/6th grade girls winning the biggest meet of the regular season three weeks ago, we were hoping they could add a City title.

The course is great for runners in that it’s very flat. It’s great for spectators because you can see the runners several times as they wind back-and-forth if you’re willing to move around. We caught them near the 1K mark and our girls were doing great. The sixth grader who has won every race this year was well out in front. Our two other fast sixth graders were together in the low teens. And C and her fifth grade buddy were in the high teens. We yelled at C that she was doing great then cut back across the field to catch her again.

When they came through this time, our leader was still way out in front, but one of her classmates had fallen back. And C and moved up. She was 11th with just under half the race to go. More yelling of encouragement then over to the finishing stretch.

Our sixth grader cruised to another win, finishing her perfect season. A reminder that she never ran competitively before this year. She’s incredible. Our next sixth grader came over the rise at #9. Then the waiting and counting. C appeared in the 14th spot, but she looked like she was struggling. We yelled and then I ran with her, yelling from the side, for the last 200 yards. “COME ON, C! KEEP GOING, C! YOU’VE GOT IT, C! STRIDE OUT, BABE!” A girl passed her with about 100 yards left and another was closing. I ran faster and yelled louder, but she was clearly on fumes. That girl caught her right at the line, putting her in 16th place.

She didn’t set a PR – she was 11 seconds slower than her City time from a year ago – but it was still her fastest race of the year by nearly 30 seconds.

She was the third St. P’s finisher.

She was the fifth fifth grader to finish.

She beat 112 other girls.

A pretty good day for her!

We had three more races to wait through before we got official results. During that 90-minute stretch all the St. P’s parents were walking around asking where everyone finished, and seeing if anyone was counting for other schools. Our top four, who score for the team competition, were all in the top 19. We just weren’t sure if anyone else squeezed in four runners in front of them.

Turns out a school we hadn’t run against all year had four in the top 15, which was good enough to edge our girls by five points for the team title. That girl that nosed out C? Yep, she was on the winning team. Fortunately those points were not the difference, as that would have only cut it to a three point difference.

Still a great day for our girls. They got another trophy and got recognized at school this morning. Football has another month left, but so far that group of girls are the only St. P’s athletes to add any trophies to the school lobby. And each time C has been one of the girls earning points for her team.

For the year C placed in every race she ran, had one top–10 finish, and twice was the #3 finisher from St. P’s. Not bad for being in the younger half of the age group.

L had two soccer games this weekend. We missed Saturday’s game while we were at the XC meet. She scored three goals in a 12–0 win. Sunday she scored three more in a 13–1 win. She’s so humble. When she scored her third goal yesterday, she turned and looked at me and said, “That’s a hat trick!” She has 13 goals on the year with one game to play. As good of a weekend as that was for L, our best player scored nine on Saturday and six on Sunday.

Since I was at Sunday’s game I can claim a very proud coaching moment. We have a kid that is huge; he looks more like a sixth or seventh grader. He’s both tall and wide, so he’s not the most mobile or graceful kid in the world. He really struggles to control the ball. We’ve been working with him all year to not worry about taking the perfect shot. If the ball’s on your foot, hit it. What we don’t tell him is that everyone is afraid of him and they’re going to get out of the way when he winds up. He scored a goal a couple weeks back, but remained reluctant to shoot. Partially because he hits the ball so hard that it often sails well over the crossbar.

This week we put him up front and told him to stay there. Don’t chase on defense and waste your energy. Sit up front and when the ball goes forward, get into the box. He scored our first goal on an absolutely beautiful kick. He took his time, got the ball lined up, and ripped it past the goalie from outside the box. It was 1–0 for a long time before L put us up 2–0. Then the big kid scored two quick goals to break the game open. When we subbed him out we were high fiving him and telling him how awesome he was playing. I high fived our head coach and jokingly told him he had tapped into the potential coaches had been trying to get out that kid for the past two years.

On the other hand, we have a couple kids who have no idea what’s going on. Worse, one of them whines all the time, tries to score on our goalie, or gets stuck way out of position. Yesterday we had him playing defense. At first he was drifting forward and we told him to get back in his position. He gave us his usual response, a whiny “WHY?” She he shuffles his feet back to position, head down, pouting. We yell at him to watch the game and he finally picks his head up to see the ball slowly rolling toward him.

Does he run up and kick it forward, like he’s supposed to? No.

Does he trip and fall and let the other team get a clean shot on goal? No.

Does he settle the ball then turn and shoot it on his own goal, as he’s done multiple times this year? No.

Nope, instead he kneels down, puts his hands out, and waits to pick the ball up as if he’s the goalie.

The best thing about this play was the the ball was rolling very slowly, no one from the other team was chasing it, and he was on the opposite end of the field of us. It was like it was all happening in slow motion. The head coach and I were screaming at him not to touch the ball. But, sure enough, he picks the ball up and hugs it close. Free kick for the other team.

The referee told him what he did wrong and he put his head down, stood in the middle of the penalty box, and pouted while the game continued. He’s lucky his head and assistant coaches are pretty laid back dudes. We just looked at each other and muttered, “What the hell is he doing?”[1]

Later in the game this kid asked to play goalie. When we said no his response was, “But I’m one of the best defenders on the team!” Before you say, “Well he did make a good goalie play there,” I’ll let you know the two times we’ve put him in goal this season he’s literally run away from the ball when he had a chance to pick it up. One time he made an amazing save as he fled. He had his back to the ball, was running away, and the ball pinned between his legs. He tripped and fell, but he saved the shot!

We have a group of about four knucklehead boys on the team, that kid included. They never pay attention, at practice they’re always pushing each other, kicking each other’s balls across the field when we’re trying to do drills, etc. I spend about 35% of practice yelling at them to shut up and listen to what the head coach is trying to teach them. Last week I got sick of telling them the same thing over-and-over and told them the next time someone kicked a ball when they weren’t supposed to, they were going to have to run laps.

Mr. Best Defender on the Team raised his hand and said, “What’s a lap? I want to run one! Coach, what’s a lap?”

I just walked away. Later I told the head coach and he muttered, “Make him fucking run it if he wants to run one.”

Youth sports!

Also fun is apparently S yelled the same thing from where she was sitting, not knowing the kid’s mom was right in front of her. I think the mom is kind of used to it, though, and may have said the same thing. ↩

Hot, Sweaty Weekend

September 25, 2017 / DB

Our September heatwave continues. This weekend would have been a great weekend to sneak in a weekend at the lake. Naturally we had sports both days, so had to just stand/sit and roast in the heat.

It was a doubleheader weekend for L in soccer. Her team played at 4:00 Saturday, which was probably the hottest moment of the last 4–5 days: mid–90s, humid, no clouds or breeze to help out. The parents who were watching were wisely camped out in the shade. Those of us who had to coach got beaten down by the sun for an hour. It felt more like early August than late September. As if playing in the heat wasn’t tough enough for the kids, the fields are covered in crabgrass, hard as rocks, and just a beast to try to control the ball on. Even our best player kept having the ball bounce away from him as it hit a rut or patch of crabgrass. L scored one goal as we won easily.

Sunday she played again at 1:00. It was marginally cooler, and there was a slight breeze, so it wasn’t quite as bad for the players. It was also the first time this year our kids have been matched up with a team that was bigger than them at every position, and had a good understanding of how to play. We were deep into the first half before either team scored. We went down 1–0 and L answered right back to tie it. We got behind again and she pounded a shot home from the 18-yard line to level things again just before halftime. Second half was the same story: they took a lead, L scored on a beautiful pass from our best player to tie. We actually took a lead on a free kick by our stud, but gave one back on a free kick. Ended up 4–4 in a pretty well-played game. L is sitting on seven goals through four games. She’s starting to learn how to play off our best player, who probably has closer to 14 goals despite usually only playing half of the game.

Sunday was also cross country day. St. P’s was the host school and we bumped up the start times a couple hours to try to avoid the heat. So C and I were downtown at 7:20 to help set up. It was just starting to get uncomfortable when she ran. I don’t have her time yet, but she definitely struggled compared to a week ago. She finished in the ribbons – at #19 – but was the fifth St. P’s finisher this week. Looking back, she’s never run well on this course for some reason. She has one more regular meet this Saturday before the City championship meet on Oct. 7. Hopefully it has cooled off some by then.

We were also babysitting this weekend. One of the young nephews spent four days and nights with us, as my sister-in-law had a work trip. He was pretty easy: he went to bed without fuss at 8:00 each night and usually slept until 7:15, when we woke him to get the girls to school Thursday and Friday, or later on the weekend when he woke himself up. He’s mobile and lots of fun. The girls had a great time getting him to repeat his animal sounds or say his other handful of words. He loves – LOVES! – ceiling lights and fans. Anytime he walks into a room, he looks up, and if he sees a light, he is utterly delighted.[1] Saturday afternoon we filled up our inflatable pool and the other two young nephews came over to splash around with him.

Yes! ↩

More Kid Sports

September 19, 2017 / DB

Kickball is done.

As you should recall from last week, L’s team had to finish a game that was mysteriously cut short by their opponents, then play that team again in a full game. Sweep the game and they would go onto the City championship. A split meant a tie-breaker playoff game to settle matters.

In the suspended game Friday, we got a run in our half of the sixth to push our lead to 13, then got out of the bottom of the inning unscathed to secure the first win. That was the highlight of the day, though. We got absolutely trounced in the full game. It was 20–1 after two innings. We righted things a bit to keep from getting run-ruled, but still lost 40–17. We couldn’t kick, our defense was atrocious, and our girls just weren’t into the game at all.

Last night was the playoff game. I was really wound up on Friday but was pretty chill last night. I figured the second game was probably more true-to-form than the first, so was just hoping we could keep it close. We had a 5–3 lead in the second, and two outs on defense, before we made a couple misplays and suddenly were down 8–5. That was pretty much the game. We left the bases loaded without getting any runs the next two innings. In the fourth we gave up six runs with two outs. It was 14–5 going into the sixth. We got two runs but ended the game with a force out at home.

Here’s the thing, though: this was almost definitely our girls best game of the year. We had girls up-and-down the line crushing the ball. We just kept crushing it right at defenders.[1] L almost killed a girl in the first inning with a line drive, and only got a single out of it because the ball ricocheted right to the pitcher. Their pitcher caught at least six liners, and their suicides kept nailing our girls at home when we loaded the bases. On defense we were outstanding, those hiccups in the second and fourth aside. We had two 1–2–3 innings. We held their best kicker, who kicked four home runs Friday, to just one. The only thing we didn’t do well was run the bases. While St S’s girls were making turns and being aggressive, our girls kept stopping. We probably left 3–4 runs at third because of that.

St S averaged nearly 40 runs a game in their five regular season wins. We held them to 14 twice. I was really, really proud of our girls after the game. It would have been great to win and go to City, but I thought they showed a ton of improvement. We had a group of three or four girls who should be able to blast the ball but can’t quite do it yet. If we get those girls kicking the ball hard, that can turn a good team into a really good one. And hopefully beat St S in the spring.

L ended the season with a team-high seven home runs. The only games she didn’t kick a homer in were our two losses. St S had girls at the corners who were not afraid of the ball and knocked down her low-liners. She kicked four balls yesterday that would likely have been homers against weaker teams. Instead she went 3–4 with three singles. Yesterday she played part of the game at suicide and part at first, swapping with another girl. Those two were awesome together, getting a combined eight outs. Whoever was up front was making perfect throws and the girl at first made the catch every time.

On our way home she asked if we would practice between now and the spring season. I told her we could kick today if she wanted to.

“No, I mean the whole team, not just us.”

I like the way she’s thinking!

OK, it was a big cross country Saturday so a quick update on that.

Man, was it hot. I talked to one of the XC coaches Friday and we agreed there would be no PRs set the next day, as the forecast was for it to be hot and humid and it was an afternoon race. Mother Nature did not disappoint: it was pushing 90 and the sun was blazing all afternoon.

C surprised us a little, though. She didn’t set a PR, but she did run her second fastest 3K ever. More importantly, she helped her team win the team title.

When the race started we were more concerned with whether she would stay in the top 25, which was the cutoff for ribbons.[2] After the gun, we walked out to the midpoint to wait for her. When she came through, she and her buddy were together at 28 and 29, a little back from two of the St P’s sixth graders.[3] Right when she passed us she made a move and passed four or five girls before they disappeared back into the woods.

We ran down nearer the finish line to watch them come in. Our sixth grader who won the first two races of the year was well ahead of everyone else again. Then we started counting. The next St P’s girl didn’t come in until #12. I figured the next sixth grader would be right behind her. But, no, it was C on her heels! Running hard and putting space between the girls behind her. She came in 14th, at 14:15, which was awesome given the heat and humidity. Over a minute slower than her insane time at City a year ago, but still good enough for her second fastest 3K by about 20 seconds.

She was the fifth 5th grader to cross the finish line. More importantly, she was the third St P’s girl, so she was in the points. She even placed ahead of one of her sixth grade teammates who had been well ahead of her a week ago. St P’s top four – the girls who claim points for the team – finished 1st, 12th, 14th, and 15th, which was good enough to easily win the team championship. They got a huge ass trophy for their performance. At practice last night they had a special presentation with the assistant principal and this morning they took pictures with both principals and the main priest. Now they have three weeks and two meets to prep for City, and a chance to take home another trophy.

Full credit: St S played great defense. But this was the best we kicked, as a team, all season. Including the games we scored 40 runs. ↩
This is one of the biggest races of the year, thus the deeper threshold for ribbons. Also it’s the only non-City Championship meet with a team competition. ↩
The pattern this year has been three sixth graders are the first three St. P’s finishers, then C and her buddy E are some combo of 4th and 5th. ↩

Big Ol’ Sports Notebook

September 14, 2017 / DB

I had hoped to wrap up the kickball regular season today. But Irma’s remnants turned yesterday into a drizzly mess, and our biggest game of the year was postponed. More on that in a bit.

M ended her season last week. Her team finished up 5–1 and claimed second place in their division. Just that opening game loss to their arch-rivals, who will no doubt crush someone in the City title game next week. M had a decent season. She kicked better at times. Sometimes she fielded well, sometimes she still got the hell out of the way of the ball when it whizzed by her. As always, though, she was excited to hang out with her classmates and be part of the team. Amazingly, late in the season, she was actually asking me to go out and practice with her. Maybe I get her to kick the ball through the infield by the spring season.

C’s season ended Monday in crushing fashion. They were out of the running for the division title, but were playing the team that was in first place. They played earlier in the season with C’s team losing by 7. Monday, C’s team controlled the game through the first six innings. They got the lead early, played great defense, and kept scoring enough to stay ahead. She had a three-run homer early in the game. Going into the 7th inning, they were up by 2 runs. Then came a total meltdown. They gave up 23 runs! It was brutal to watch, as they made mistake after mistake in the field. Bobbling the ball. Throwing to the wrong base. Turning their back on runners and letting the advance. Girls standing and watching while the ball rolled by them. Everything bad that could happen did. The other team didn’t kick a ball out of the infield and still managed to go through their order nearly three times. C’s team got two runs back in their half, but that wasn’t enough to even make it a respectable loss.

A week earlier C’s team played an amazing game against our big rivals St B’s. Both teams scored two runs in the first, and single runs the next two innings. And then it remained tied 4–4 all the way through to the seventh inning. Neither team kicked particularly well that day, but both teams were playing amazing defense. In the top of the seventh we got a runner on, moved her to second, and then got a ball through the infield to bring her around to take the lead. C made all three outs in the bottom of the inning and we had a 5–4 win. Normal games between good teams are still usually in the teens. You never see 5–4 games!

C was amazing in this game. She took three absolutely monster line drives off various parts of her body – she basically caught one with her lips – and the game had to be stopped so we could check on her. Once she shut off the tears, she made every damn play in the infield. She threw people out at first. She threw people out at third. She beat people running home. She caught at least four balls in the air. She didn’t do much at the plate, but her defense saved the day. After the game two of the girls from St B’s came over to check on her to make sure she was ok, which I thought was incredibly cool.

C made a big jump this year from good player to arguably the best player in her grade.[1] She’s still a little inconsistent kicking, but when she connects she can blast the ball on a line that is almost impossible to catch. As I’ve shared, she’s generally an excellent fielder. Her area to work on is true to her personality: she just needs to take a deep breath and calm down sometimes. You can see her getting worked up, whether by a bad call, an injury, or just the game getting extra stressful. She starts running around a little too fast, looking nervously around, unsure of her play. But, as an older brother of a teammate said, for the most part “C is a beast!”

Now for L. Through a schedule quirk, her team played the two weaker teams in her division two times each before they were set to finish the season with two games against the other good team. In their final game against a weak team, our girls played their worst game of the year. If they were older, you would say they overlooked St L because they had beaten them by 30 runs the first time they played. I’m not sure if 3rd graders think that way, though. Anyway, we were behind the entire game until L kicked a three-run, walk-off homer in the bottom of the 6th to win it.[2]

On to the final two games against St. S to see who goes to City. I watched the first two innings of the first game before I had to leave to get M to her game. While there L kicked her seventh homer of the year to tie it. Midway through M’s games I started getting texts that we had won by 12, but it was really controversial. All I heard that night was the other coach was kind of crazy and some of the St S parents were complaining about a specific call.

Then, the next day, I get a call from our head coach saying that the St S coach had pulled her team off the field at the end of the 5th inning thinking the game was over. The umpire asked her if she was sure, twice, and the coach insisted yes, she was done. I have no idea why she did this, and her story has changed a couple times since the game. Anyway, there was a call to the league office the next day from St S and we were instructed that we had to play the final inning of the game when we went to St S to end the season. Since a division championship is at stake, they want every game played to completion. Which I kind of understand. But, also, she pulled her damn team off the field! She gave up! Twice!

Yeah, the other coaches and I have had some interesting conversations about these events for several days now.

So last night was supposed to be the final night of the regular season for us. And then it rained. We’re still trying to lock in the makeup time, but it looks like Friday we’ll go out there, play an inning, take a quick break, and then play a full game. If either team wins both games, they go onto City. If there’s a split, we’ll have to play a tie-breaker game next week.

The good news is we lead by 12 in the “suspended” game, and we will kick first. Bad news is we’re near the bottom of our lineup. But if we can get some girls on and turn the lineup over, we have a great chance to really extend the lead. Good news is we played excellent defense last week and never let St S score more than 5 runs in an inning. The bad news is we had one 20-run inning and the rest of the game was kind of a struggle on offense. But I think we learned some stuff about St S’s defense that will help us.[3]

The best part of all of this was how everyone was pissed off about it. At cross country on Sunday I was suddenly in the middle of a group of parents who were asking, basically, “What the hell happened?!?!” Most of these parents don’t even have kids playing kickball, they had just heard about it through the school grapevine. St S allegedly had a couple crazy parents at the game last week. Their coach is an odd duck. The other coaches and I keep reminding ourselves to take deep breaths before the game when we finally play. Last night L told me not to worry, “We’re going to beat them.” Oh boy…

Oh, cross country. C ran her first individual race of the year last week. She ran kind of slow – I don’t think she practiced at all the previous week because of kickball – but still managed to take 13th in the 5th–6th grade race. That got her a ribbon. St P’s is really strong in this age group. There’s a sixth grader who has never run before who won the race by nearly two minutes! We had five girls place, which means they have a great chance to win City next month.

And, finally, L’s soccer season began Sunday. She scored two goals and they won, although we almost pissed the game away late when we had a couple kids in goal and on defense who were literally running away from the ball rather than trying to, you know, defend it. I’m helping coach this team so more about that later.

The interesting thing, though, is that for the first time ever L is not clearly the best player on her team. There is another kid who is freaking amazing. And he’s just a little guy, barely bigger than her. He’s so good that he’s playing on an older age-group team, too, and had to leave our game at halftime to go play with them. When he was on the field, we almost never gave up possession and could have scored about 20 goals instead of the five we had at halftime. And he’s not just a scorer. He’s an amazing dribbler and passer. He would get the ball, cut it out wide, see L in the middle, and rifle a perfect pass through traffic right onto her foot so she could immediately control it. Both of her goals came off passes he made to set her up. I really hope this kid plays a full 50 minutes for us each week!

We have two 5th grade teams, so while I’m sure she was the best on her team, I think a couple girls on the other team deserve consideration for that honor, too. ↩
Third and fourth graders play six innings; fifth and up play seven. ↩
The guy doing our bathroom project has a girl on our team. Last Friday while his painter was doing some work, we talked for about 90 minutes on how to defend them better. ↩

Sports, Sports, Sports

August 28, 2017 / DB

We are officially in the busiest stretch of the year for us. Right in the middle of kickball season. First cross country meet was last Saturday. Soccer practice begins this Wednesday. For the next two weeks we’ll have five teams cranked up and rolling through practices and games/meets.

C had a solid sports weekend. Friday night she had a kickball game. They run-ruled their opponents in six innings. She had two singles, a double, and a home run. And, once again, she played amazing defense. She had two innings as either pitcher or suicide in which she accounted for all three defensive outs of the inning. The dad keeping score with me was incredulous, “How did she catch that? What do you do, just crush balls at her at home all the time?” I could just shrug.

The best part about her defense is how she has no poker face about it. After the first out she’ll look around in surprise, like she can’t believe she made the catch. After the second she’ll start giggling. While making the third out, she’s flat out laughing. She could be a stone-cold killer of a player if she was as competitive as some of the girls out there. I’m kind of glad she still looks at it as a silly game.

At her cross country meet the next day a mom of one of her teammates, who was not at the game, came up to me and said, “My 7th grader texted me from the game last night and said ‘C.B. just played the greatest kickball game I’ve ever seen!’.” That might be exaggerating a little; one of his classmates has had some amazing games. But it was still cool to hear.

As for cross country, the first meet of the year is always a crapshoot. You’re not sure how a month’s worth of training will pay off. How will the kids react to running competitively for the first time of the year? How will they manage getting some food – but not too much – into their bodies before the race? This meet throws another curve at the kids as it is a relay event. Kids have a partner and take turns running 1K at a time until they’ve run 6K as a team. While it’s a good way to ease into the season, for some reason this format seems to throw a lot of kids.

New for us this year was C moving up to the 5th/6th race, so no longer was she running first. We watched the 3rd/4th race and soooo many kids were crying at the end. Good times.

Anyway, C was running with her buddy E, as they are the only two St. P’s 5th grade girls this year. They were both consistently in the top 10 of their age group last year, so we were eager to see how they did. During the race they both seemed to struggle. E got the hilly side of the course and hadn’t run a bunch of hills yet. C just looked off; she seemed to be running with choppy steps instead of smooth ones. Boys and girls ran together, so I was doing my best to count where they were amidst the packs of kids. I had them finishing 12th or 13th. We got the results Sunday night and they were actually 11th. Four seconds faster and they would have edged out one of the St. P’s 6th grade teams for the last ribbon. Not too shabby! I think hearing that helped C understand that just because she’s running against older girls doesn’t mean she’s not still competitive.

After the race she said her knees hurt from kickball the night before. Plus she’s been fighting a cold, although she said that didn’t affect her as much as her knees did.

If the weather cooperates, we have a packed schedule this week. L has two kickball games, tonight and Thursday, against the two teams they beat last week. M has a doubleheader tonight and another game Wednesday. C has games Tuesday and Thursday. We’ll try to run her tonight, although her cold has gotten worse and she may take the night off. And L has soccer practice Wednesday.

Friday is a night off from kid sports, but we plan on going to the local high school football game that night before our last lake weekend of the summer.

Finishing Fast

October 10, 2016 / DB

Before I jump into the true topic of this post, a quick realization I just had. Lately many of the family stories I’ve been sharing in detail here have already been posted to Facebook in much more simplified form. Since the bulk of my regular readers are friends on Facebook, that means you’ve often had a sneak preview of the story about X or Y before I get around to putting a few hundred words about it up here. The rest of story, you might say.

Which instantly made me think of sitting in my grandfather’s or uncle’s pickup truck in a field or pasture in central Kansas while they ate their lunch and listened to Paul Harvey. If you listened to Paul Harvey at all as a kid, you remember one thing. “And now you know….the rest of the story…” Although I’m uncomfortable comparing myself to Paul Harvey for a number of reasons, saying that I’m sharing the rest of the story here did make me laugh a little.

Anyway, Saturday was the last cross country meet of the year, the big CYO city championship. She had a streak of four top 20s in four races going into Saturday’s race. I was a little concerned because she didn’t run last weekend since we were out-of-town and she had been fighting a nasty chest cold all week. I wasn’t sure she would be in top form for the biggest meet of the year. And, honestly, I was worried that with every one of the best teams competing, she might get knocked out of the top 20 for the first time this year.

Fortunately my worries were silly. She did just fine.

She’s never a great starter, but she broke out strong this week. We were probably 100 yards down from the start and she was in fourth place when the crush of 3rd/4th graders roared by us. We had friends scattered around the course who were texting us updates from different spots. She fell back a little, but we kept hearing that she was still in the top 10. She passed us right beyond the 2K mark and she was 8th, but looked to be struggling a little. The finish was directly behind us and we took off to claim a good spot before they came in.

We were probably 50 yards down from the finish. The winner, who is the youngest in a family that just dominates each of their age groups, came in right around 12:20. The second-place girl was another 20 seconds behind her. Then another 20 seconds before the third place girl. A few seconds later we saw a group of girls come over the rise together. First we saw the St. P’s 3rd grader who has just kicked ass all year, and is usually about 30 seconds ahead of C. Then, as the group resolved into individuals, there was C right behind her! I might have become psycho cross country dad as C passed us, shouting out encouragement as loudly as I could. There were three girls right on her ass, and again she appeared to me to be faltering a little.

I leaned out over the rail and watched them race toward the finish. It was a helpless feeling. I couldn’t encourage her, give her a boost of speed or strength, or do anything to keep the pack of three behind her from getting by. It was all on her. I kept waiting for one of her trailers to make a move, but they couldn’t do it. C held them off. She finished sixth! She was two seconds behind her schoolmate and two seconds in front of that group that tried to chase her down.

As soon as I saw her cross the finish line, I took off toward the holding pen. I heard S yell from behind me, “THIRTEEN TEN?!?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!” I stopped and looked back at her and said, “WHAT?!?!” I was so focused on the racing, I never looked at her time. I glanced back at the official clock, which by now was up to 13:30. She had just obliterated her personal best time by nearly 90 seconds! She was almost two minutes faster than her best time of last year! Homegirl put it all together and the perfect time.[1]

When we found her behind the finish line, she was kind of in a daze. I grabbed her and gave her a huge hug. I came damn close to saying, “Babe, you were fucking flying!” I thought it, that’s for sure. When I told her what place she finished in and how fast her time was, she got really happy. But she was more focused on finding her friends who were behind her and cheering them in.

Later another St. P’s family who was at the finish line pulled C aside and complimented her both on her run and how she reacted after she finished. They said she ran up to the St. P’s third grader, gave her a hug, and said, “K! We did it!” They told her how she really impressed them with how she was looking out for her teammate. I was even more proud of her, and happy that I had sunglasses on when they shared that story.

It turned out everyone was posting huge PR’s. It was an absolutely perfect day: sunny, dry, in the low 60s. A brisk wind, but one that was squarely behind the runners on the finishing stretch. This course is used for high school and college meets, so I don’t doubt it was measured correctly. Maybe it was just something in the air. Everyone we talked to said their kids dropped 30–60 seconds off their best times.

So it was a really good finish to a fine season. C ended up with three top ten finishes: a 5th, a 6th, and a 9th. She also had 14th and 16th place finishes. The best part about Saturday was a lot of the girls who beat her when she was 14th and 16th finished behind her. It’s one thing to improve your time. It’s another to improve more than your rivals do.

I think cross country fits her really well. She has a bit of a busy, unfocused mind. Sometimes she gets overwhelmed and emotional. I think running relaxes her. She doesn’t have to think about where to throw the ball, how many outs there are, or if a ball is going to land inbounds or not. She can just go.

I think we have enjoyed it even more than her. And not just because of her success. Cross country is a lot of fun because it brings the entire school together. We’ve made new friends through kickball and volleyball. But those teams are smaller and include, at most, two grades. At a cross country meet every grade from 3rd through 8th is represented. And all the parents go out and cheer for all the kids, whether they have a kid running in that age group or not.

It’s great for the kids, too. Our coaches really push the older kids to be vocal leaders. They design little games at practice that mix up kids by ages so that everyone gets to know everyone else. It’s really cool to see the 7th and 8th graders encourage the younger kids, or just to say hello to them at school. You can see the boost of confidence some of the younger kids get when an 8th grader walks by and tells them “good job” while saying their name. I enjoy the way the sports builds the feeling of community, both for the kids and the parents.

And then there was one fall sport left. L has just two weeks of soccer left. It’s going to be sooooo nice having just one night of practice this week.

Her official time was 13:13. ↩

Fall Sports Roundup

September 19, 2016 / DB

The countdown continues for the big kickball game Wednesday. Other things distracted me a bit over the weekend, but I imagine the nerves are going to start to kick in again later today.

The distractions were good ones, though. First, C had her best ever finish in her cross country meet Saturday. She finished 16th in her first meet of the year. She was running against 5th and 6th graders in that race and there were over 100 girls total in her race. A week ago, she fell into two mud puddles on a terribly sloppy course and still claimed 9th place in the 3rd/4th division.

This Saturday she was again running on a pretty wet course. Fortunately this one was mostly grass, so it was more spongey than muddy like the previous week. But it was also super humid and the sun popped up just as her race began. All the kids seemed to be struggling with the thickness of the air.

She was again running in a race that spanned four grades, but this week she would just be scored against the 3rd and 4th graders. But we had no way of telling which girls were in which category. One parent noticed that some of the girls had yellow numbers, others had white. We decided that must be the way to tell the two groups apart. We were wrong.[1] But we were counting the yellow numbers as they went by. And when C passed us, just before the finishing stretch, she was in 12th place and right on the heels of the girl in 11th. She didn’t quite catch that girl, but came in right at her PR time and was looking strong. It was a great race.

We were having guests over that evening, and this was a late afternoon race, so we didn’t stick around through the next three races to wait for the awards ceremony. I was shocked when I got a text a little after 5:00 saying C had finished 5th! Holy crap! She was again the fastest St. P’s 4th grader, two places behind our super-fast 3rd grader, and had two classmates in the top ten with her. I ran up to her room and told her. She got a silly grin on her face and said, “Since when did I finish 5th?!?!”

She’s doing a great job and having a lot of fun running.

Sunday was L’s second soccer game of the year. She moved up to U10 this year, which means a much bigger field (60 x 40 yards), 7 v. 7, and 25-minute halves rather than the small field (35 x 20 yards), 4 v. 4, and 8-minute periods U8 rules she played the last two years. And she’s a seven-year-old playing against kids that are beginning to get a lot bigger than her. She was humbled in her first few practices, when she couldn’t just get possession and weave through the defense at will then fire away. In fact, after one practice she decided she did not want to be a striker anymore and instead wanted to be a sweeper.

Their first game was pretty rough. They had a 2–0 lead at halftime, but the coaches made a poor choice in goal to start the second half and gave up four goals in about five minutes. Our kids ended up losing 7–4. L had one decent chance to score but couldn’t convert.

This week we got a better matchup, our kids looked more comfortable, and our coaches had the lineups a little better balanced. Just like last week, our kids broke through late in the first half and had a 2–0 lead at halftime.

That’s when homegirl decided to do her Roberto Baggio act. Early in the second half, she got the ball out wide right just over the midfield line. She angled toward the middle of the field, got a defender to turn and commit that way, and then cut the ball back hard right. That defender was toast. She got him spun around then cut back left again, dribbled through the 18-yard box, and fired a shot in from about six feet out. It was a pretty sweet play!

She had a couple more near-misses before she pulled off a Roberto Baggio play. She collected a loose ball in the corner and dribbled through about five defenders along the end line. She faked the goalie one way, took a quick touch to get an angle, and shot the ball by her with the outside of her foot. Another sweet-ass move, if dear old dad says so!

She had a third goal later, but the referee was out of position and didn’t give it to her. After the game, when I asked L if that ball went it, she said, “YES! That ref wasn’t even watching!” I liked her attitude and told her I was giving her credit for it anyway.[2] Her team won something like 8–0. We honestly quit paying attention once it got out-of-hand.

I think she’s more excited about being a striker again now that she’s seen she can score at this level.

We never figured out what the difference between the yellow and white numbers were. ↩
Hey, we don’t keep official score in these games, so I can give my girl credit for a goal the ref robbed from her! ↩

Last Summer Weekend

September 6, 2016 / DB

The last weekend of the summer is in the books. It was a busy and fun one.

It started super early, at least for C and I, as she had her first cross country meet of the year Saturday morning. I had to have her at the course by 6:30 am, which meant a 5:45 alarm for us. I was not super fond of the early wake time, but she did just fine. She was in as good of a mood as she’s ever been in first thing in the morning. I think she was looking forward to running.

That showed in her performance. She ran in the 3rd–6th grade group, and finished 16th overall out of 105 runners. She was the second-fastest fourth grader, and the fastest fourth grader from St. P’s.[1] More importantly, she cut 30 seconds off her best 3K time. That’s huge, especially when she’s only been going to practice sporadically because of kickball. Her kickball season ends this week, so who knows what she’ll be capable of once she’s running 2–3 times per week before races. She was pretty pleased with her performance, as was I.

After the meet, we grabbed the rest of the family and headed down to the lake. Our guests weren’t arriving until Sunday, so we had the afternoon to get the house and yard in order. It had been exactly a month since our last visit, so there was lots of work to do. The girls swam a little, and we took one trip around the lake with L in the tube, but overall it was a pretty relaxed day.

Sunday, our guests the Heberts and KC Belfords rolled in. There was a lot more tubing and swimming with the addition of five more kids to the mix. Lots of catching up, laughs, and good food and drinks for the grown ups. We had beautiful, if not quite ideal weather all weekend. We had a few cool nights late last week, which extended into the weekend, so the water temperature had already dropped a bit. It was right in the refreshing zone as long as the sun was out. When a cloud passed, it got a little chilly. Naturally, when everyone was packing up to head home on Monday, the temps shot back up into the 90s after five days in the 70s and 80s. Just in time for us to sweat like lunatics as we packed away the dock toys.

And thus wrapped up our 2016 lake season. It’s always crazy to me how quickly this part of the year goes. When Memorial Day rolls around, you’re hoping the water is warm enough so that everyone will want to get in and enjoy it. By late July, the big Friday night trips to the grocery store and the packing up on Saturday begins to get old. August is always a light lake month with school and fall sports beginning. And then suddenly it’s Labor Day weekend and you realize it’s the last chance to spend two days lounging in the water.

We’re going to try to do better about getting down for at least part of a weekend before the month is over. It’s tough with cross country meets every Saturday morning, and L having soccer every Sunday. And while it may be too cold to swim for hours if we make it down later this month, we can still take the boat for a spin or two. We just want to try to make sure our next trip isn’t the annual quick one to get the boat out of the water before the first freeze, or to just do yard work.

And now I guess it’s time to start drinking Oktoberfests.

There was a St. P’s third grader two spots in front of her. That kid was moving! ↩

Kid Sports Roundup

November 4, 2015 / DB

Another October down the drain.

In all this baseball madness I was not in the mood to write about much else. So some catching up is in order. Let’s begin with wrapping up the younger two girls’ fall sports experiences.

When we last discussed sports, C. was building up for her final race of the year, the City Championship meet. This was going to be the biggest meet St. P’s ran in, with something like 27 schools taking part. So big, in fact, that the girls and boys ran on different days.

Once again, she did awesome. She finished 41st overall, 20th in her grade. She was the third St. P’s girl to finish; first of their third graders. Most importantly, she cut her time for the fourth-straight race. In her first individual race in early September, she ran 3K in 16:03. In the City meet, she finished in 15:23. Dropping 40 seconds in five weeks is pretty damn good!

She was very excited with her race. When I found her in the mass of humanity at the finish line, she smiled and said, “I threw up in my mouth a little while I was running!” Based on her tone, I think she contributed some of her speed to that near disaster.

She loved her first year of cross country. Her coaches were pleased with how far she came this year. And I think we’re all excited to see what she can do next year if she runs through the summer and when she’s in the top half of her age group.

L’s soccer season ran until the Sunday before Halloween. After that rough start, where she looked over-matched physically and her team got stomped, things got much better. She scored at least one goal in every game and her team never lost again. She continued to improve her ball control, her passing got really good, and she was often lining up to use her left foot in traffic, something her coach wanted her to focus on.

There was a game mid-season that we feared would be like the season opener. Their opponents looked to be heavy with second graders. One boy in particular looked to be closer to 9 than 8. While we watched the kids warm up, we were a little worried.

Misplaced worry, it turned out. Our kids ran circles around the bigger kids. The stole the ball and passed away. They ran to space and waited for a teammate to find them. They peppered the goalie with shots all day. The final score ended up being something ridiculous like 10–1.[1]

The biggest thing is she had fun. She loves soccer. She can’t wait for practice nights and Sundays when games roll around. She’s lucky that she’s had a coach the past two seasons who works the kids hard, but also keeps it fun. For their last practice, he turned them loose and had them play a modified version of Australian Rules football. She was rolling around with the second grade boys and having a great time.

And now we’re done with sports for a bit. M. will begin volleyball practice over Christmas break. So we have nearly two months where we don’t have to fight traffic to get to 5:30 practices four nights a week, or have our weekends dominated by games.

We know this because the older sisters, all fifth and sixth graders, made a scoreboard and were tracking goals. Thank goodness the other team’s parents were sitting across the field. ↩

Kid Sports

September 28, 2015 / DB

In reverse order of age this time, your periodic Kid Sports Update.

L., and her whole soccer team, rebounded nicely from their rough first week. Playing against teams that have not been full of second graders like their first opponent, they’ve won two-straight games in shutouts. She scored three goals last week and two yesterday.

Most impressively, her team is playing pretty, team soccer. Most of the kids are learning how to pass out of traffic and then run to space. Last week she was bringing the ball up the middle. When two defenders cut her off, she made a nice pass out to the left, where a teammate ran onto the ball. She immediately cut away and towards the goal. Her teammate took a couple dribbles and then fired a pass to the middle. She collected it, danced around a couple defenders, and scored. I couldn’t get my U–10 team to do that last year!

She also made a perfect pass from the goal line back across the penalty box that a teammate ran onto and blasted. He was unlucky, hitting the goalie square in the chest, but it was a gorgeous play.

L’s team has eight kids, there are eight periods, and four positions on the field. With every kid playing half the game that means they rotate through all four positions. Last week she had played sweeper and both forward spots. When her final period began, the coach asked, “OK, who hasn’t played goalie yet?” She turned, looked at the ground, and took a few steps behind another teammate. She clearly was not interested in playing goal. We laughed out loud at her attempt to hide. The coach found her, though, and put her in goal. We think she just much prefers offense. But she also got to play goalie one quarter last spring when she played up for a game. And she let in two goals when kids three years older than her blasted it by her because she was out of position. I think she has some nervousness about what to do. She shouldn’t have been nervous. She picked up the ball both times it was close to her and made great passes out to teammates.

C. has had a great couple weeks of cross country. Two weeks ago, at a big invitational meet that featured about 700 total kids, she finished 35th of 120 in her gender/age group. The top 30 got ribbons so she just missed on that. And she cut over 30 seconds off her previous best time.

This weekend she ran in a much smaller meet. We don’t have official times yet, but she was right around the 15:30 she ran the previous week. This time that was good for 13th place. When she finished I told her she was around 15th or 16th. As they were bringing the award winners up to the stage, and went past those two places without calling her name, I watched her look around to her friends with a look of surprise and amazement. I was glad I miscounted the girls in front of her, because it made her even more proud of her result.

Her team takes this weekend off then she runs in the city championships next Wednesday.

And then kickball. M’s team played in the city semifinals last week. We knew it was going to be a tougher game than any of their regular season contests. As the first semifinal was wrapping up, we watched St. P’s opponent, St. M, warm up on a side field. Their first baseman couldn’t catch anything. Their other infielders were having trouble fielding it. “Man,” I thought, “they’re going to cream these kids.”

Whoops.

St. P’s scored three in the top of the first, but that was a struggle because St. M’s was making every defensive play. Then, in the bottom of the inning, the first seven St. M’s players got on base and scored. One girl, who was about the size of the smallest St. P’s girls, cranked the ball over the head of our left fielder.

We held them scoreless for the next three innings, but could only add two runs of our own, making it 7–5. St. M’s scored two more in the fifth, and then two, two-out runs in the 6th. Our girls could only score three over the last three innings and lost 13–8. That one, poor inning was the difference.

St. M’s had some sixth graders, so our coaches told the girls there was nothing to be ashamed of. Besides, they got a trophy for winning their division and were super excited about getting that to put in the school lobby.

It may have been a good thing they lost, too. The team they would have played in the final, St. S, was very, very good. They beat the St. P’s team that had a mix of 5th and 6th graders twice in the regular season. Not saying we couldn’t have beaten them, but it was going to be a struggle.

The bigger thing, though, is we avoided St. S’s coach. Or rather I avoided him. We’ve heard stories about him all year. Apparently he is rather annoying if your kid is not on his team. He likes to yell out the calls on the bases, or at least his view of them, louder than the umpire. And then argues any call he disagrees with. We also heard, from the other St. P’s team, that he’ll yell at players on the other team, “Two outs, run on anything,” even when there aren’t two outs. The coach of the other St. P’s team, who we know pretty well and is about as laid-back and pleasant as you can be, had to tell him to knock it off the two times their teams played. Since I keep score, there’s a good chance I could have been standing near him for seven innings. Which meant A) my blood pressure would likely be sky-high if he really behaves as we’ve heard, B) my mouth would likely be bleeding from biting my lips, tongue, and cheeks to keep from saying anything and C) there’s about an even-money chance I would have said something to him at some point.

One thing I’ve learned in our girls’ years of sports is that games are much more pleasant and relaxed when moms[1] are coaching. Not that there aren’t still disagreements and discussions, and our coaches were all super competitive and wanted to win every game. But it seems like if there are two moms coaching, they find a way to work it out and end the game smiling and wishing each other luck. Men, and I include myself here, are generally overly competitive idiots who let the testosterone get in the way of letting our kids have fun.

That nonsense aside, M. really enjoyed this year. She got better and was on a really good team. On our way home after the loss, she said she was sad, not because the team lost, but because she wouldn’t be able to go to practice and games with that group of girls until volleyball begins in December. More than the wins or her personal improvement, that was my favorite moment of the season.

Or aunts, etc. ↩