It seemed like we waited forever for this day to come… Josh’s first soccer (football) game! He has been participating in the Warwick Academy football program since he started at the school in Year 1, over two years ago. The program is set up so that during the first two years, the ‘pee-wees’ (ages 5-6) don’t play games against other teams, but rather they scrimmage against each other and build up their skills under the expert tutelage of Coach Nic. Then in Year 3, they finally get to put their skills to the test against other teams from other clubs around the island.
Coach Nic has plenty of experience coaching the young lads, as he’s bringing his third son up through the program! He coached his first from when he started with the pee-wees through the progressive levels until his next youngest was old enough to join. He then started the process again coaching the pee-wees, and did the same until his youngest, Josh’s buddy Nate, started up – and once more, he started from the bottom. Coach Nic has been a fantastic coach – Josh is really enjoying football largely thanks to him (Nic’s #1 rule is to HAVE FUN’), and I think all the boys on this years Warwick Academy Kodiaks (the Under 8’s team) are happy to still have him as their coach again this year!
Anyway – game day – I was probably almost as excited for Josh’s first game as he was, though I didn’t get out of bed at 6:45am like he did, excited to get going! We were supposed to start last weekend, but due to weather issues we had to postpone until today.
After a quick final pep talk from Coach Nic, it was time to show when they were made of against the Paget Titans.
The games this year are played in a ‘three halves’ format, basically three 20 minute periods (like hockey – yay!). The team was split into two lines – one line played the first 20 minutes, another played the next 20, then they made substitutions throughout the third, depending on who was tired, etc. Josh played the second ‘half’ and a good chunk of the third as well.
The team really played well together, all the parents on the sidelines were pleasantly surprised at the quality of play!
We started off pretty strong – one of our more skilled players, Freddy, was really running well and making some great chances, a few of them resulting in goals (including one on a penalty that he kicked over everyone’s heads, much to their surprise!). First-half goalie Youenn (Yew-ehn) came alive when playing out in the second half and got a few of his own as well. About half way through the second period we had worked hard to get the score up to 4-2.
Then – proud Dad moment – Josh scored his first goal!!! Here is a bit of the sequence (below) – it was a great effort to get the ball back after nearly being stripped of it by the other team, then a well-placed shot and…
GO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-AL!!!!
So proud!! And it was great to see the camaraderie between all the boys, after every goal there were celebrations and hugs and cheers, they were really having FUN, as is the point!
Youenn made some good saves (including one rocket that hit him in the face, after which he kept playing!), as did Nate when he was in goal, but the Titans managed to pull to within one – 5-4 in the latter half of the third. Josh’s goal, however, proved to be the game winner (yay!) and Callum added an insurance goal near the end to finish the game at 6-4 – first game, first win!!
Big smiles in the handshake line (by both the winning and losing teams, I might add), and a quick pow-wow with Coach Nic before heading home to reminisce about the game we just finished.
Great job, Kodiaks! Way to go, Josh!!