It has been a tumultuous year.  Especially as it relates to my lacrosse club.  Our teams had their up and downs this weekend.  I was at a lot of the games coaching, but was also running between games a lot.  I managed to coach all of Eden’s games, most of Liz’s, and some of Maggie’s.  I was not able to make it to Noah’s as he was out of state.

I was really proud of my teams.  They all competed hard.  They didn’t win all of their games, which I know disappoints them (and their parents), but they are all improving, and are having fun, and for that I am really pleased.

I was very impressed with and proud of my kids this weekend.  As each had some special performances.

Maggie played up a year in age with the 2025s.  They played a tough team called Lady Blue Crabs (LBC).  They had a very tall girl, who dominated the draw the entire first half.  We won very few in the first half, with our best draw girl.  In the second half, our draw coach decided to put Maggie on the draw.  She was at least a foot shorter than the girl she was drawing against, maybe even a foot and a half.  But Maggie won 4 straight draws!  And we scored the next three goals, to close a wide gap to 9-5.  She also was tenacious on defense.  Then, later in the day, she played M&D and scored two goals.  And the next day, she played Heros, and was awesome all over the field, frustrating the other team’s best player with aggressive defense.  It is fun to see her do this, especially since she is so much smaller than her competition.

Noah had a weekend!  I was getting texts all weekend of the scores and how he was doing, even though I didn’t see it.  In his first game, his team won 4-3.  He had two goals and two assists.  His last goal, the winning goal, came with 22 seconds left in the game.  They lost the next game, but he had 4 goals.  The third game, he had 1 goal and two assists.  And his last game, they won 8-7.  Noah had 6 goals, including the game winner.  13 goals on the weekend, and not really sure how many assists.  He drove back from Hershey PA to make it to her older sister’s last game of a recruiting tournament.  As she walked off the field, he came up and asked her how many goals she had this weekend, and proceeded to let her know he had 13!

In her last tournament of the year, Eden played her best ball.  She forced several turnovers by the goalies of opposing teams, many of which resulted in goals.  She fought for really tough ground balls and won them, especially late in the C2 game, when we needed possession to secure the victory.  And she scored both days.  We have some great scorers on our teams, who have some fancy shots.  Courtney had a particularly awesome shot on Saturday.  But Eden’s second goal took the cake this weekend.  She faked the goalie high.  Then she faked the goalie low; the goalie bit and so did I; I thought it was saved, and then Eden threw it in the goal past the goalie.  Fake-fake-goal!  Loved it.

Liz played in a recruiting tournament.  Her first game was awesome, 4 assists.  Second game two goals and two assists.  Third game, I think she had 3 assists and a goal.  Her best couple of shots though came in the last game.  On one, she came around the crease and threw a fake pass; the goalie bit on the pass, and completely turned around to see where she passed it, and Liz threw it in the open goal.  Then a few minutes later, she drove around the cage, and threw a no look twizzler to the upper corner; it skimmed the goalie’s helmet though and careened off the crossbar, straight down, but not breaking the plain.  So close, but still awesome.

I am so proud of my kids.  They all have great attitudes and work really hard.  I hope that the work ethic that they are developing in their youth carries on through the rest of their lives.