The girls (R, S, T, K) all had great fall seasons. They all got to wear dark blue for their team colors. Riana and Sariah's new select teams wear dark blue and Tierra and Karina were on the same team, Silver Strike, which also happened to wear dark blue. That made it nice to be able to wear team colors and support the girls.
The weather was crazy! In September, it was really nice and super warm. However, in October, we had so much rain!! This picture above, was the field next to ours, and the teams couldn't even get the ball to move out of the giant puddle! (That happened at Grant and my adult game in November. It was so gross to play in that much water and mud!) One morning in October, it was like 37' degrees and there was a thick layer of ice all over the grass, when Tia and Nina played their game. Later that afternoon at Riana and Sariah's games, it got up to like 77' degrees!! It was the craziest temperature jump I've ever seen in one day.
Tierra and Karina enjoyed playing on the same team again, this season. They are on a great team, with a coach who really knows what she is doing, and an amazing group of girls... they are all so sweet! The parents are great too. Tia and Nina learned a lot and got better and better. We didn't realize it was team picture day because the coach accidently sent the text message to our home phone number. It was also the last practice of the season. Coach Cindy gave all the girls on the team special little bags of treats for the end of the season. Stephanie, Kameryn's Mom, took all but three of these pictures. (Team picture- Front Row- Denae, Kameryn, Saj, Celeste, Courtney, Back Row- Kayleigh, Karina, Ale, Tierra, and Addy, Not Pictured- Katelyn and Rory, who broke her arm)
Karina did a great job! She is playing 2 years up and you can't even tell. A couple of the other girls are also playing up. A girl named Rori, that reminds me of Karina, broke her arm this season and wasn't able to finish the season. (And apparently, someone else broke theirs two seasons ago... crazy!) She had so much fun and we noticed that she likes to stick her tongue out while playing. So cute!! (Stephanie took these pictures too!! Awesome!!)
Tierra, aka Miss Smiley!!, loved playing soccer again on Silver Strike. She scored lots of goals, but even when she wasn't, she was still smiling. She was friends with all the girls on the team and had so much fun! :) Both Tierra and Karina were even good sports when it was freezing or rainy or anything. They really enjoyed this season!
Sariah really enjoyed being on a team with girls her own age. She made lots of new friends. She had the chance to play forward quite a few times and kept almost making goals! She would miss by inches, hit the post, or the goalie would somehow save it! We wanted her to get a goal so badly because we knew she would be so excited if she did! Finally, during one game, when she was doing awesome, it was like 2 minutes until halftime, and Grant had the use the bathroom so bad and figured that nothing would happen in two minutes. Well, sure enough, as soon as he left, someone crossed the ball to Sariah, in front of the goal and she shot it in and SCORED!! I was jumping up and down with excitement!! It was so awesome!! Sariah had a perma-grin for the rest of the game!! And Grant couldn't believe he missed her goal... he was totally bummed!! Sariah worked hard and had a great season. In the last game of the season, Sariah's team beat the #1 seated team, who was totally undefeated!! However Sariah's team ended up finishing #2 behind that team because of wins and losses, but they were only 1 win shy of first place! They had a great season! The pictures include-- 1) Sariah and friends Christina and Morgyn that Morgyn's Dad took, 2) The game that Graham coached-- Sariah was a captain and she started both halfs, 3-7) Just Sariah in action, 8-9) Team pictures-- Front Row- Merecedes, Christina, Anna Grace, Ashley, and Sariah, 2nd Row- Madison, Kendall, Emmy, 3rd Row- AnnaLise, Morgyn, Hannah, Natalia, Aubrey, Back Row- Coach Scott, Rachel, Coach Phil, Coach Graham (not pictured- Coach Matt)
Riana played amazing this season. And so did her team! Even though they were a brand new team, you couldn't tell. Grant coached them to a 2nd place finish in their first tournament ever and to an undefeated, 1st place finish, for their first season ever! They are a great group of girls and had a lot of fun together. One neat story of the season was the story of our goalie. At the beginning of July, we didn't have a goalie and Grant really felt that Emma would make a great goalie. He started encouraging her to play goalie and the more she played it, the more she enjoyed it. The team really rallied around her and told her how amazing she was at it (because she really is!) She started to really enjoy it and do really well! (The picture above is one of my favorite saves from the whole season.) Grant got lots of comments from other coaches and such telling him what an amazing goalie he had, which he made sure and passed on to Emma and her family. Grant also tried to encourage the girls to help all the girls on the team get a goal, which he likes to do in games that are going well (up until they are ahead by 5-6.) I think he was able to get everyone on the team a goal, except maybe one girl. Also, we had a girl, Olivia, come down that normally plays up, however she is Riana's age. I think she really enjoyed becoming friends with all the girls. It was neat to see those friendships forming and to watch the coaches teasing her and her teasing them back. She became a leader too. It was cool. (Tia and Nina really enjoyed playing with her younger sister, Avery too.) Riana was also a leader on the team and often led the cheers and such. Riana also scored several goals during the season and was able to play almost every position on the field. (Several of these pictures came from the TCUnited website and several were taken by my friend, Jen, with my camera... thanks Jen!!)
What would a soccer season be without some ice cream trips? We went to Dairy Queen with a bunch of Riana's team, after one of her away games. It was a lot of fun to just relax and get to each other.
At one of Sariah's away games, in December, Tierra and Karina were running back from the playground and Tierra slipped on the wet grass. I was nearby, however, sadly there was nothing I could do to stop her from falling. To make matters worse, the grass ended and so the top third of her, including her face landed right on the pavement.... ouch!!! Poor Tia!! It looked so painful! Jay and Kristina, Dani M, and some other parents helped take care of the other kids and helped get me first aid things to help Tia. I really appreciated it. Also, it was nice that we had the baseball dugout for the kids for when it started to rain. They really enjoyed playing in there... it was like a big playpen... LOL!! ;)
Grant's team gave him this awesome personalized water bottle and a gift card to the waterfront restaurant, "Anthony's" for $40, as a thank you gift for the season. Here is a picture with him coaching in the background.
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