Soccer Ketchup

Owen finished up his fall soccer season today. He got to play on a scrappy team that came together well enough to finish second in their division! Not too bad when at least two of the other teams have been playing together for years and at least two of our players were 4th graders! They moved up to full size fields, 11-on-11, and headers this year. Go Ketchup! (Yes, really, that's what they decided to call themselves...Intimidating, right?)

The best part was that Owen got to play on a team with 3 friends from the neighborhood. We set up a carpool for twice-weekly practice, and the boys had a blast! Although Coach started out giving nearly everyone 50% playtime, he eventually realized that these boys needed to be on the field most, if not all, of the game, every game.

One of the boys (Matthew)'s grandmother is a wonderful photographer and she captured a ton of photos of Owen during one game for me. You'll feel like you were at the game! Owen (#6) played center defender, and he really found his confidence in stealing the ball from the offense and booting it back downfield. They had an excellent goalie, but Owen was pretty good about keeping him from having to do much and filled a leadership role on the field for the defense. He got to do most of the goal kicks and even a few corner kicks.