A little about growth, part 2

Double rainbow over Iowa

I don't think coaches are born nervous and superstitious, I think that happens after years of pinning your hopes and dreams to teenagers. Sometimes they surprise us in a good way, sometimes it's not so good--we just put on our lucky socks and hope for the best.

Going into the Monmouth game, lucky socks on, we knew all we had to do was play our brand of soccer and we'd come out with a win and the right to host the Tournament, something we hadn't done since 2004. But the lucky socks were powerless against the Monmouth Scots. They played hard and well, we played sorta a little bit hard and poorly. It was one of those "perfect storm" games when everything seems to go exactly wrong. I attributed it to nerves which lead to over-thinking which lead to brain cramps, but whatever it was we played badly. We had a few kids who had their worst game of the year, a few who just seemed listless and uninterested, and a few who clawed their way through the game but it just wasn't their day. Monmouth ran over us like we were squirrels and they were a Mack truck. The final score was 0-3 but it could easily have been 4 or 5.

Somehow we mentally recovered in the hotel that night and scraped together some second half goals to beat Illinois College the next day. For ten minutes following our Sunday win we stood around with cell phones in our hands waiting to hear who won the Grinnell/St. Norbert game. If it was GC, we'd most likely have to travel there for the Tournament, if it was SNC then we would host. It was an insane nail-biter with two PKs, but the Green Knights pulled out the win, meaning we were Midwest Conference Champions. It was the most anti-climactic way to win I could have imagined.

For the next two weeks I went had trouble sleeping. I would lie awake and wonder if we were going to display the same brain cramps we had against Monmouth in our semi-final game. Were we going to let team that wasn't as talented as us beat us at home? Were we going to have to sit around the rest of the weekend watching teams we had beaten in the regular season play for OUR trophy? What could the coaches do to snap the team out of it? It was maddening. Mostly because I never came up with an answer.

But after the first five minutes of the Grinnell game I knew I wasn't the one who had to come up with an answer. The players, these kids, had to do it themselves, and they had. They had figured out what happened against Monmouth and made sure it wasn't going to happen again. My nerves disappeared and didn't reappear for the rest of the season. Against St. Norbert the next day I was anxious to get started, anxious to finish once we got a lead, but I was never nervous about our kids and their ability to play well. All season TR and I knew that if we played hard, we'd play well, and if we played well, we were going to win. And at the most important, most pressure filled point in the season, our kids grew up. They weren't the nervous kids who had barely played the Monmouth game. They were the women who won the regular season trophy and the NCAA bid in the same season. The first group to do that in the long history of Lake Forest Women's Soccer.

They showed that same spirit, that same growth, against Concordia-Moorhead in Iowa. Playing a good team, with one of our forwards injured on the bench, we scored first to go up 1-0. That's growth. That's what sports are all about.

Someday, when this season is long in the rearview mirror, these kids are going to understand what they learned on the soccer field. And it certainly will have nothing to do with a ball.

A little about growth, part I

Forester Kryptonite stored here

At the beginning of the season, within a day or two really, the coaches saw something special in this group. We had some kids who could score, some who would never stop working, some who showed good skills and coachability, some excellent on-the-ball defenders, some athletes, some speed, some upperclassmen with experience, some rookies with swagger. All of this was spread out over 25 players, which also meant that we had more depth than we'd had in a while. After a few days hashing things out in the office after practices we decided to gamble and try something (part formation, part concept) that we had never done before. It did not work out. In fact it crashed and burned pretty gloriously in our first game when we gave up 5 goals to a team that was in no danger of competing for a National Championship. Needless to say the experiment was quickly abandoned.

A return to a more common formation followed  and we spent the next couple games trying rookies and veterans alike in different positions, trying to find a mix that worked. Two solid performances in Kenosha, WI seemed to point to the fact that we were on the right track. And then we travelled to Madison, WI for a midweek tilt and churned out one of the most listless performances in recent Forester history. It was awful. I was disgusted, discouraged, and completely pissed off. In my mind, we were far too skilled, too fast, too experienced, too energetic, too talented, and too deep to play like we absolutely hated soccer but loved standing around a grass field in the all-black outfits TR handed out. Look, they even have numbers on them!

As usual though , a night of tossing and turning lead the coaches to calm down regarding the loss and come up with a small, but ultimately important line-up change. We moved one of our best scorers from the central midfield to sweeper. Suddenly everything seemed to click. It's actually a great coaching lesson-- sometimes the easiest solution to a horrible game is extremely simple. Or as my AP History teacher used to say, "don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

We never looked back. We went the next 10 games without losing. We scored goals, we played defense, we made big saves, we laughed, we had fun, we yelled at each other, and we won and won and won and won. In fact, our third game following the final formation change was one of the best games I have seen from Lake Forest athletes in my eight years with the program. We beat Lawrence at their place by playing some of the most dynamic soccer I've ever seen at this level.

That game seemed to propel us forward into the rest of the season. We had suddenly understood the kind of soccer we were capable of playing, and the intensity and effort we could show in practice,  and over the next few weeks we tried gamely to get there again and again and again. We weren't always totally successful, but our efforts were always enough to get us a victory (and one hard fought tie). That is, of course, until the last weekend of the regular season when we travelled to a teeny little town in downstate Illinois and came face to face with our biggest enemy: ourselves.

TBC.

Trying to gain perspective

The soccer blog has been silent through the end of our season. Obviously. I accept full responsibility. The last week of practice I mentioned that I hadn't updated it for a while and the team was all fired up: "But you have TONS of stuff to post! We won the Conference Tournament!!"
But the thing about it was I really couldn't sift through our success and find anything to write about. Yes we won, but that information was already available as a well-written press release on the Athletic Department page. What did I have to add other than I was really super pumped about going to the NCAA Tournament? (And I was. And am)

T.R. tried to provide some facts to inspire me:
 
--as of last week we were one of the remaining 64 DIII Women's Soccer teams still playing. There are a total of 424 DIII W. Soccer programs, which is the most in any sport, any division. (There are 338 Women's Bball teams for example.)

--The reason California Lutheran University was playing in Iowa with us is that Wartburg College was the westernmost competition site in the Tournament. Most Divison III soccer teams are in the East and Midwest.

Nice facts T.R., and I appreciate the help, but there was no saving my writer's block. As a coach I was excited, nervous, and trying to focus on what we needed to do against Concordia-Moorhead. There was no space in my brain for eloquence.

Anyway, maybe in a couple weeks I will be more prepared to reflect on this season and how our kids managed to get themselves from an embarrassing 0-5 opening loss to having one of the most successful seasons in program history. Because THAT is quite a story.

But until then, check the the Athletics website for updates and nostalgic reflection. Our all-conference selections have been announced. Our awards ceremony is coming up relatively soon. And every soccer players favorite holiday (Thanksgiving--we love to eat) is right around the corner.

All Hallows' Eve

The Halloween practice is a Forester tradition and is almost always both fun and funny. This year we had great participation from the whole team and an interesting array of costumes. One trio dressed as their coaches, another as babies. We had some duos go as Christmas elves and fairies and then individuals as Minnie Mouse, Steamboat Garth, the Periodic Table, Superman, Spongebob, a soccer nerd, a hippie, a girl scout, a devil (complete with tail that made me laugh every time she turned around), a robber/bandit of some sort with a bag of money tied around her waist, a penguin, a "cereal killer," and a Forester ballerina. Our coaches went as a taco and the grim reaper. Our torn-ACL teammate went as an oddly creepy ghost with a limp.

This ghost was creepiest when the sheet was waving in the wind. Shivers.

The best thing to say about this is "no comment"

Santa only wishes these elves were his

By the end of practice I needed Mickey to stop hanging out in that awful diaper

Even when dressed in completely different costumes they manage to wear the same thing

Of course the nerd hangs out with the periodic table of elements

A penguin protects her baby

Napoleon says '"good luck on Friday!"