game on!

Soccer season started last week for AYSO soccer and this is the first year we signed Kela up. She wanted to play last year (along with all her cousins) but we held off, and waited for her to turn 6.

Sort of regretting that decision....

I guess because of her birthday...she ended up in U-8 soccer instead of U-6 like we had intended. Which means that she plays with 6-8 year old girls. Most of whom have already had at least a year or two of experience playing the sport.

And since Kela is the youngest as well as probably the least experienced (not to mention smallest?!), we were (and still are somewhat) worried about how she'd fit in with her teammates.
This past Saturday was her first game...and she did pretty well!

And to our surprise, she was more aggressive than I had expected!
She even manged to get a kick or two in!

Not to mention hustle up and down the larger field like nobody's business!



Unfortunately, our team lost (1-2)...but she did have fun! And that's what we were most concerned about. We just didn't want her to get discouraged and frustrated about keeping up with her teammates.

She has a really good coach...who's really good about emphasizing techniques and positions, rather than just simply shooting goals. I think that's good for Kela to grasp the basics of the sport. We're hoping that she can learn to enjoy being out there (in the scorching heat!!) and make some new friends and gain confidence.
I mean, that's what team sports is all about, right?!