First Soccer Game

Today was Jessica's first soccer game. [FYI, for those of you wondering what the rules are for such small players here are the differences: the game is only played on a half field, there are 6 players on the field, they are required to pass 3 times before they can try to score, the goals are smaller and it is only one hour.] Jessica said her stomach hurt this morning and I realized that she was really nervous about the game. She told Aunt Sheri on the phone last night that she was nervous about playing in a crowd of soccer players. We talked about it and decided that as long as she tried her best and had a good time it didn't matter how she played. She began the game on the sidelines. Once she was put in they put her into a forward position. This is not her strength, she doesn't really have the stamina at this time to run non-stop. After half time they put her back on defense. There are 2 official coaches and 2 dads they are well helper coaches. All 4 of these people are on the field with the kids in addition to the 2 high school referees. One of the helper coaches realized that Jessica needed some extra help and became her personal coach- it was just what she needed. He stayed right next to her and encouraged her and gave her advice on what to do. She did much better on defense. THEN they decided to make Jessica goalie. We were sitting next to our neighbor and her son was goalie and it was driving her nuts (especially when our team scored 3x in a row). Oh no. Every mother's worst nightmare. On the plus side our team has at least two really good players and that means that the ball stays pretty far away from our goal most of the time.

Here she is suiting up to be goalie...
waiting....
showing that she is alert and ready to stop the ball if needed (notice her personal coach hanging out at the goal with her)...
HER BIG SAVE!!!!!
She did it! She stopped a goal and almost stopped another one later. More importantly she wasn't intimidated and threw herself right in there to try to get the ball. I thought she did great. She was very happy and said she had a great time. They don't keep score (well not officially although I am sure some people were). We have at least one game every weekend sometimes one on Saturday and one on Sunday until the 3rd week in October, so you might be seeing a lot of these pictures in the future.