Monday, October 06, 2008

Tournament Weekend Recap

The U-18 team I coach successfully won its first tournament that we competed in this fall. This is a big milestone for us since we just bumped up one competitive level and picked up a bunch of new players. Being able to start out with a success like this one is a great tone to set for what is left of the fall season and in preparation for the state cup in the spring. The weekend definitely had its ups and downs though. We had to come back in two of our 4 games. In fact, in the final, we were down 2-0 and then came back to tie it up 2-2 in the second half. We ended up winning the game on penalty kicks. Obviously, being able to pick ourselves up after being down 2 goals is one of the "ups." That kind of character is what you look for as a coach.

I need to figure out my defense. Historically, we are a team that is very stingy on giving up goals. That doesn't seem to be the case at the moment and I am not sure if that is simply because we are playing a higher level of competition or if some sort of adjustment needs to be made. I'll be working on it as soon as we hit the practice field again.

I gave the guys Tuesday off and am camped out at the airport at 4:30 this morning on my way to DC for a couple of days. Our next tournament is a local Lafayette one and I think it will prove to be extremely difficult.

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