First off, Alex and Sam went to the State Championship within their division for soccer and unfortunately lost in the Championship game.   The championship game was against Jacksonville and was very physical.  Both Alex and his friend, Zack, went out a couple of times with an injury but returned to the pitch after a few minutes rest.  The field they played on was also very tiny – smallest field we had ever seen and certainly not a benefit to the style of ball they play – they need a lot of room to set up on the wings.  Because of the field size they never had much of a chance set up any plays, as it was just too crowded in the middle.  The other thing that played against them was that the semi-final game went into overtime and finally penalty kicks before it was over, so everyone was quite tired.  The sad part is that they easily defeated Jacksonville early in the season, but on a bigger field.  

  Sam didn’t see much playing time as both of the games were too close,  but he did see a few minutes in the final game to give one of the other defenders a couple of minutes rest.

  Next up basketball season and it started the Monday after the soccer championship.  Alex, of course made Varsity and Sam plays on Junior Varsity.  Alex has been playing quite a bit this season and even started a couple of games before the holiday break.  The team came in 2nd Place in the Southeastern Tournament which was quite an accomplishment because the school has not made it to the Championship game in a number of years.  Alex made quite an impact in both the semi-final and championship games with his defensive play.  Several parents, the coach and principal all stopped by to tell us how great he played in the semi-final game.  The coach even joked with him that it was the most minutes he had ever played in a Varsity game.  Alex was given the assignment of shutting down the other team’s top player and he actually held him to just a couple of points… the player ended up being named to the all-tournament team as he had two other great games.   Since those games Alex has been playing quite a bit, but is still reluctant to dribble or shoot very often.  Unfortunately for the team, the two star players were kicked off the team over the holiday break and Alex will now need to step up and take some more shots as well as dribble and help run the offense.  The first game since the holiday break was yesterday and they ended up losing by 12 points.  Alex played almost the whole game, but it was obvious they were missing their star players.  The team played well up until the 4th quarter (as close as 1 point a couple of times), but just ran out of gas.

  Sam meanwhile has been working on his shooting and dribbling skills and has seen some playing time, but not much yet even though he is the biggest player on the team.  We are going to try to work with Sam over the summer to improve some of his basic skills, but he does seem to enjoy basketball a little more than soccer.  We really think he just likes wearing his bow tie to school on games days.  🙂