Today marked the end of the First Six Weeks grading period, and while we did have a few players lose academic eligibility, the number was fairly small. We will be addressing those issues with the players next week, and hope to get them all back eligible as soon as possible.
Just to give everyone a bit of an update, we are progressing in our daily workouts and working towards the season. It takes a little time to integrate all the new players and to figure out what system fits our personnel the best, but we are beginning to see some flashes of the team(s) we would like to see during the season.
We are still looking at several of our newer players as possibilities for the Varsity roster, and likely will be for a good while. Some of them will likely end up on the Varsity, while it will be better for some of them to spend the majority of the season on the JV, in order to develop their talent by playing on a regular basis.
The remainder (with some exceptions - more about that momentarily) are either on the JV team or what we are going to call the "Reserves". At the JV level, we make every effort for every player in uniform to play at least a few minutes in every match. Therefore, we have a limit to how many players we dress out for each match. As we have more players than game day roster spots, there are going to be some girls who don't get to dress out for every game. Each and every player will be given the same opportunity to compete at practice for a game day roster spot, but in the interest of the overall program, we feel that by limiting the number of players who dress and therefore play, we are allowing more opportunity for those players to develop. At the same time, we feel like this creates the opportunity for more friendly competition in practice to see who earns those roster spots each game day, which in turn, should be good for the development of all the players - those that dress, and those that don't.
I do want to address the "exceptions" I mentioned above. It seems that every year, though we do our best to avoid it, we end up with some players who, for whatever reason, don't seem to follow through with what it takes to be on a competitive 5A High School team. Case in point: we have several girls who have not practiced or dressed out even once. We're Six Weeks into the school year, and they haven't touched the ball, ran a lap, or even put on a pair of cleats! Inevitably, these young ladies don't show up in the class period on a regular basis, and are not making a very good impression. Well, I can feel myself heading towards a rant, so I'll stop there and just say that there are currently some girls in the class that won't be playing on any of our teams this year, simply because they have, in a sense, selected themselves out. Our hands are tied as far as removing them from the soccer class - we aren't allowed to do so until January, but at that point, we hope to have every member of the soccer class participating daily and being a productive member of one of our teams.
Coach Tarango and I are both excited about our seasons, and about the prospects for both our teams. Though the rosters are not set, and won't be for some time, I fully expect the Varsity team to be in the playoff race, and with some hard work, intelligent play, and a little bit of luck, possibly contending for the District Championship. Though it depends somewhat on which players we take up to the Varsity, I also fully expect our JV team to be one of the best in the District as well.
One last thing before I go - at some point after December 2, we will be having a parent meeting for the parents of all of our soccer players. We don't have an exact date set yet, but it will likely be some time in early December, after practice one evening. It will just kind of be a chance to meet the coaches and also for parents to ask any questions they may have, as well as meet other parents and get to know them a little bit. I'll be sure to post the date & time well in advance, as well as let the players know a few days ahead of time. However, if anyone ever has any questions or needs, please don't feel like you have to wait until the meeting to get in touch. I'll be happy to help any way I can at any time.
Only 7 more weeks of school until practices start! Have a great weekend!
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