Soccer, Soccer, Soccer

Calfgrit8 (he’s 8 now!) is still playing and enjoying soccer. His outdoor fall season just finished up last Saturday with a tournament, (his team came in 2nd). Then he had a make-up game this past Saturday to play a game that had originally been rained out. Interestingly/strangely, the final tournament game (which they lost) was against a team they hadn’t played at all during the whole season. And then the make-up game was against that team again (lost again).

Calfgrit8 is in the yellow shirt, black socks.

His indoor fall season has just gotten started two weeks ago. The league manager put this team in the 10-year-old bracket, much to the chagrin of us parents. CG8’s team averages 8 years old, and the other kids in the 10 bracket average a head taller than our kids. The first game in that 10 bracket had our kids loosing about 1-8. The next game was lost 5-6. Our coaches talked to the league manager to get our kids put back down the 8 bracket, if for no other reason than just out of safety concerns. Two or more kids running into each other can hurt, but when some kids outweigh the others by 30 pounds, our kids can get injured.

Calfgrit8 is in background.

So the next game was back down in the 8 bracket. And our team won 15-2! Most of us parents were actually embarrassed for our kids to cream the other kids like that. The league manager had put our kids in the 10 bracket because their skill was that much better than the other 8 year olds. Now we’re kind of throwing up our hands about what to do. We want our kids in a bracket where they’re challenged with equally skilled teams, but we don’t want to run the risk of one of our kids getting overpowered or hurt by a 10 year old. What to do?

Calfgrit8 is in the yellow shirt, black socks.

Bullgrit