Game 1 of the Season!

The energy was high. You could see and feel the excitement to finally come together and showcase what they were made of!  They came out super strong, notching goals from 6 girls just in the first half alone.  At a quick timeout 15 minutes into the game, we discussed that we needed to utilize space for ourselves on our attacking end since Pike was using a full pressure defense.  We made a slight adjustment in strategy, asking our squad to attack 1v1 immediately, and then look to create opportunities either by a successful drive to net or create some draw and dump attempts.  After 25 exciting minutes, we were up by 10 goals.  Therefore, we had to ask the players to implement an exhausting stall strategy, requiring everyone to be careful with the ball and not to shoot/score.  After 15 minutes, we called another time out to switch up the tactics once again, this time allowing the players to go to goal, but needing to complete 3 passes and then look to take it to goal with a 90% certainty of a score.  

 

And after that, we did score one or two more goals but with poise and strategy.  The highlights for us as coaches was watching the players do what we asked, which was to make the "ball do the work".  We moved the ball around quickly, shifting lanes, circling the ball, and we got to see possibly one of the most beautiful full field transitions that included 4 passes ending with a draw-and-dump to the low attacker, finishing with a tally.  

 

The end of the game came fast and we ended 11-0.  

 

Thank you so much 8th graders Jill and Dawson for stepping into the net for us.  We will unfortunately be drawing names out of a hat every week to see who will be playing in goal for our future games.   The deal is - they play for 1 half, and then they can be on the field for the other half.  

 

 

-Coach Weze and Coach McNall