Soccer!

Soccer season hasn't really ended with Sonya coaching Karsyn's competetive U10 Girls team, but things officially kicked off this weekend. Karsyn's Fall league season started as did Ry Ry's foray into the game.

He started U6 soccer, which is played by both boys & girls. Sonya loves coaching Karsyn so much that she's taken on Ry Ry's team as well.

We started Saturday by running over to the newly re-opened Sunnyvale Soccer Complex to catch the U9 Girls Comp Team play. A couple of Karsyn's school mates play on that team, and is actually the age group that she should be playing in, but we have her playing up. The game started at 9 am, and it was already a toasty 80+ degress at the opening whistle.

After that, we trekked over to Serra Park for Ryan's first official soccer game. This is "swarm of bees" soccer at its finest. They play 3-on-3 with no goalie, so most of the time the ball is simply moving from one end of the field to another. Ryan scored two goals in the game. After his first goal, he ran over to mom (er coach), and lept into her arms to celebrate. It was so him.

He likes to, let's say, celebrate after he or his team scores. With both fists pumping over his head, he lets out a "YEAH!" every time the goal hits the back of the net. On one play, a little girl from the opposing team accidentally knocked teh ball into her own goal. Ryan pointed this out to her (innocently I'm sure), but she didn't take kindly to his stating of the obvious. She grabbed him by the arm and started to dig her nails into him, before the referee intervened.

His look was like, "hey, thanks for scoring that goal for us!", even though she was digging her talons into him. There is no score keeping at this level, so nobody wins or loses, but it was fun to be there to see Ry play competetive sports for the first time.

The most amusing part of the game, was teh post game handshake. The coaches had all teh kids lined up facing each other in two lines. Typically, the kids start walking toward each other, so that they can high-5 each other as they pass in opposing directions. The kids however had no idea they were supposed to do this, so they ended up having the worlds largest group handshake as they all crashed into each other. Good stuff.

Photos | Slideshow available here

Three hours later, we were back at the Sunnyvale Soccer Complex for Karsyn's first game of the season. K's team, the SASC Devils 98, would win 5-2 starting the season on a high note. This is a set team that keeps their roster consistent over the life of the club. They were formed last February, and are starting their 2nd season together. The roster is assembled by the coaching staff after a series of tryouts were held last Winter.

I maintain the Devils Team blog, so you can read a recap of that game here.