Laura Vegas

this weekend was all about these girls. two full days on the soccer field. four hours on the road. and four games played.

every now and then, you land a great team of girls. girls that mesh together on the field and off. and manteca revolution was one of those teams. joe took on coaching the under 12's girls all-star team. and 16 of the best players were chosen to represent our city (15 shown here. one of our girls was sick the day i took this photo).  eight of those girls came from sarah's fall team. and quite a few of the other girls had been together on one fall team as well. it was nice to have everyone knowing everyone else, going in.

they've spent the last 3 months together. practicing, playing, and having fun together. as a team, they played so well together in the games. we had our last two games cancelled because of rain. and we played eight games, in four weekend. we only lost two games, and won six games (five in a row).

we went into this tournament weekend with a few tough games. sixteen teams in the under 12 girls, and it's all luck of the draw on what teams you are scheduled to play against. we tied our first game on saturday, 0-0. we knew the tie would hurt us a little, pointwise. it's all about the points in tournaments. we won our second game, 1-0.

we came back sunday, and knew it was a win-or-go-home game. if we lost, the other team would move on to a forth game. if we won, we would move on. our girls played harder then i've ever seen them play. they put their heart and soul into the game. it was a rough one too, against a very physical team. but they're determination payed off for another 1-0 win, with sarah scoring a goal. if any game was won by a total "team effort", it was that one. every single girl was crucial to that win. pointwise, this put us in the running for 5th and 6th place.

came back for the fourth game, and the girls were all so excited and just happy as can be. i was actually a little worried they weren't going to get serious enough when the game started. lol! we ended up having to play the team we played (and won) the day before. we knew we had it. but i was hoping the girls wouldn't ease up, and get too over-confident. they didn't. they went out there and gave it everything they had. once they were up a few goals, the coaches decided to move some girls around to positions they might not have gotten to play much. our awsome goalie even got out of the box, and onto the field. we won our game, 4-0, and we took 5th place. they all got medals and pins in recognition of their work. out of 16 teams, i think 5th place is incredible. what is also pretty incredible, is that we didn't let a single goal get past us the entire weekend. 

the coaches and all the parents are so proud of our girls. they're just a great group of girls, that love soccer. and manage to have lots of fun playing it. joe truely enjoyed working with these girls, and being their coach. this was his first run at being the head coach. and to do it on an all-star team holds a bit of pressure. i knew he could do it. he's just got it in him, and is great with the girls. we also had such a great group of parents. always willing to help out at practices, and with setting up and taking down goals. very supportive of every girl on our team.

so, after seven months straight of soccer, soccer, and more soccer. we're done. we get a break. well, kind of. lol! sarah gets a break. she's the one that went 7 months straight. alyssa got to take one month off, after fall league. then she started back up, with conditioning and tryouts for high school soccer. after two months, she officially made the JV girls soccer team at her high school. games just started this past friday. honestly, i don't think soccer ever ends in this house 😉