Week of September 22-27

Tuesday: Home against Hartley (JV Red meal at Hogue Varsity at Palumbo's)
Wednesday: No practice
Thursday: JV GOld game at Delaware Hayes. Bus leave from Hogue at 4:15
Saturday: Game at Jonathan Alder

Endurance

Coming into the game against Hiliard Davidson I challenged the boys to look at every game as a test of enduance. Not in the mindframe of physical endurance (although we need this!) but in a spiritual way. Looking at James 1:2-6, I told the team to use every chance we get whether that be in games, practices, team meals, school or other situations to be tested in our faith. For when we are tested we develop perseverence and when we develop perseverence we are ready for anything God gives us. As we played Davidson that night it was quite apparent that God wanted us to learn a valuable lesson in desire. Hilliard Davidson had more desire than we did. At halftime we talked about having desire to play hard through an entire game, not just for a couple minutes. I think the boys understood what I was getting at and proceeded to have a much better second half. As we steped off the field that night I told the boys that although we played better and with mroe desire, we needed to have better preparation during the week. Our endurance may have sustained us for a half but we needed to sacrifice more if we want to show everyone who we really are.
I was proud of the way we went into the game agaisnt Columbus Academy! The team was focused on using the time God gave us to worship him and to "walk worthy" of being called his children. The work ethic and team chemistry in that game was a great witness to what we are learning this year. Not only was this a great win for us in terms of regional and divisional competition but this was a great boost to our morale and confidence as a team. I have reatedly told the boys to trut themsleves and play with confidence. This game really reflected this message. I am excited to begin the long stretch into the tournament now. This will give us some games to bring up some new boys, rest some players and refine some of the fringe strategies we need to address. Let us continue with preseverence in walking worthy. Be praying for lessons and encourage the boys to endure the trials we face. Let us praise Him in times of loss and victory. Let us never cease straining for the prize!

Future games September 6-12th

JV Gold: Saturday (September 6th) Noon at Bishop Hartley (no bus transportation)
Monday (September 8th) 4:30 at Bexley (meet at the hogue to leave)

JV Red/ Varsity: Tuesday at Desales, Saturday afternoon (home) Cardinal Mooney

Our first loss

With our first loss of the season behind us, I want to take some time to relfect on the progress of the team. In past posts I have dicussed lessons we have learned as a team through our games played. The game against St. Charles was no different. The beginning of the game was similar to the way we have started every game. We play our strongest at the beginning of the game and continually wear down as the closing minutes draw near. This tendency set us up for a rude awakening with almost 25 minutes left in the second half. Being down a goal was not the problem. The problem we faced was the lack of desire and heart to finish the game, although there were times in the game that I thought we could get back and even come out of the game with a win. However, my hopes were dashed as the clock ran out. The boys were obviously exhausted, frustrated, surprised and becoming angry at each other as well as the situation ( I am sure many of the parents experienced these emotions in the car rides back home after the game) which caused us as a team to fall apart. I think the game in itself was a great lesson in where we, as a team, need be in the future. After the game I told the boys we lost not because we couldn't score. We lost because we didn't want to score. I went more in depth with this reason by telling the boys that we are missing 2 out of 4 aspects of soccer that are needed to be successful on the field. I said that as a team the two aspects we DID have were #1 skills and #2 we had knowledge of the game (how to play good soccer). The 2 aspects we DID NOT have were the heart to fight and the fitness to run for an entire game. Now we can win games with just pure skill and knowledge of the game. We have actually seen this happen this season. But when we have no heart to win as a team and we are unfit, then we will never obtain the kind of season or level of play we expect to have at Worthington Christian. Our goal for this year is to be Living Sacrifices for Christ as a spiritual act of worship (Romans 12:1-2). My question to the team was " How can we worship if our hearts are not in it?" This was a great lesson for us early in the season. I thank God that we have seen, experienced and now know that we are not up to our worship potential yet. So we have come to a small crossroads of the season I guess. With our presumeably hardest two games in a row next week we are staring at each other wondering who is going to step up and prove they have the heart to win and the desire to worhip with everything ounce of energy they have. This is a challenge for many of the boys. It is a challenge to me for sure. I encourage you to ponder this as a family, parent, player, or reader. Are we really worshipping God if we don't give (sacrifice) our everything to him? Are "walking worthy" yet?

Wellington

As we prepared for our season opener all last week I was anticipating some struggles as a team. With beginning the school year as well as trying to define roles/teams, feeling over confident and looking past our opponent I knew that the Wellington game would have its share of learning opportunities. Oh boy did we learn a good lesson! I told the boys at halftime that right before Wellington threw the ball in I was thinking it might be good for us if they scored right then.....well I didn't really think it was going to become reality. Going into half I could tell the boys were frustrated and quite surprised at the score. Dominating the first half and coming in with nothing to show for it as well as being down a goal was not in the pre-game plans. With all this said, I knew that God has blessed us with a valuable lesson that needed to be learned. The lesson was:

When we face struggle we play harder and trust each other more. I told the boys at half that we will be in the same situation in a more important game further down the season. I also told them that this game was going to set in motion the level of play we want to play at. So going into the second half I challenged the team to run harder than Wellington and trust their teammates. We know the outcome of the second half. When we play harder good things happen!

So moral of the story...When we are losing, when we are playing down, when we are feeling pressure, when we are fighting to get back into a game we must play harder defense, we must stay calm and most of all we must trust each other to come through in the end.

I will leave you all with the thought that has been a theme and saying for the past couple of weeks within the team.

"When you see a turtle on a fence post what should you think? You should think it didn't get there by itself" (citation: David Petrel)........ We will never get anywhere by individual effort, but together we can get to where we want to be come November.

Next game: New Albany....another game, another lesson, Praise God!

The beginning of school!

As we start the school year this week there are a few points I want to make. First off, on Monday there will be no practice as the JV Gold team takes on their first away game at Dublin Scioto and the Varsity and JV Red takes a rest day after a long week of scrimmages. Returning back to practice on Tuesday from 3-5:30pm the teams will be looking to solidify team chemistry and positions in order to prepare for the first week of games. This is an exciting time for the boys. A new school year and a new season will foster energy on the field and between teammates. I encourage all the parents to look for opportunities to engage their sons in conversations pertaining to season expectations, team roles and their outlook on their individual play or improvement. The coaches will be using the final two weeks of August to start the assessment campaign of all players. As we have taken the entire summer to observe players and try to fit them all into the best situation for growth, it is also now time to address player strengths and weaknesses. As I stated at the parent meeting, there will be opportunities to engage your son in opportunities for maturity. This is one of those. We will be sitting down with each player to talk about their roles and how they can improve on and off the field. The parents part in all of this is to encourage the player to take a close look at their habits, behaviors, actions and skills as they play on the Warrior soccer team . So let's get down to business and get ready for a great season and school year.

Preparation week

This week we are looking to prepare for the onslaught of games at the end of the month. As this week unfolds there are a couple things we really want to focus on. After stressing the need for team chemistry and a focus on worship through the Father/Son campout, it is time to focus our attention on using this chemistry on the soccer field. This week we will be dividing into Varsity, JV-Red and JV-Gold teams so that we can better build team chemistry. This will help us further define levels of ability and set in motion the progression of development for each team during the season. With all this going on I am sure that you understand how important this week really is. With two scrimmages and a showcase this week it is going to be a time for many players to learn their roles on the team as well as see how practices will determine playing time. I want to encourage all of you to take this week as a focus week. A week to focus on the upcoming season and prepare our hearts, minds, bodies and teams for what i think will be a season full of worship for our Savior. Finally let me break down the schedule of practices for the week.

Monday: Practice 9-11am and practice 3-5pm
Tuesday: Practice 9-11 and home scrimmage Tree of Life (JV 3:00 and Varsity 5:00)
Wednesday: Practice 9-11 and 3-5
Thursday: 9-11 and Alumni game for Varsity
Friday: Practice 9-11 and 3-5
Saturday: Night of Champions showcase games at Westerville South (Varsity only games at 5:00 and 6:30)
Sunday: off


OK here we go, Let's take these opportunities to be living sacrifices for God

The Start of August

Conditioning Week is over! I am sure the players will tell you that they ran hard, some of them harder than what they had planned for. In either case I am proud of the way the team took to running all the different distances, locations, and drills. It took a lot of guts and focus to continually push themselves beyond their percieved limits. Although the week of conditioning is over it does not mean that our quest to be the fittest is over. During practices we will condition. So get ready to continue running! This brings me to my next point.

As official practices have begun yesterday I want to remind all of you about the importance of being there. This year we will have a large group of players to make up the teams. I need every chance I get to evaluate, watch, and coach your player. Everyday we will be lacing up the shoes and heading out to the field. Last night at the team meeting I addressed the need for mental stability and focus to play soccer at a high level. I expect these boys to be mentally prepared to play the game. PARENTS THE BOYS HAVE A HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT FOCUSING ON THEIR MENTAL GAME DUE THIS FRIDAY !!! We are on the home stretch before the season. Let's prepare to have a great year.

From the Coach's perspective

I want to take a minute and map out some of the aspects of this year's team that I saw while in Strongsville. I think it is important for players and parents to know where the coaches are coming from in terms of direction of the team's progress. The weekend gave me a great chance to sit back and watch how this year's team is beginning to form. I like what I saw! The players were all able to play at the level of our competition and most of the time above it. Due to this level of play that we have put forth already I am eagerly awaiting the practices in the future. The first three weeks of August we will focus on these three aspects of improvement:

1. Fitness! I want our team to be able to play defense and offense as a TEAM. This means everyone must run more than thier opponent. We must be more fit to play in order to play at a higher level

2. Communication. Great teams know how to communicate. This means that players need to not only talk more but to read each other better. This takes a lot of focus, a lot of practice and a lot of unselfish play.

3. Playing faster. In the soccer world this means that players are touching the ball one or two times before giving it to another teammate. The best teams in the world do this on the highest level. It takes intense discipline and a high level of fitness.

Let's get ready to improve!

Conditioning Week!!!

From July 30-August 4 the team will be putting away the balls, hanging up the jerseys and lacing up those running shoes. The ever famous and traditional conditioning week has quickly come upon us this summer. In the effort to prepare for the season physically the team will be going through 5 days of intense physical workouts. These will be long hard days that will test the boys physically, mentally and socially. I have given you all a rough schedule earlier in the year with the places and times of each day's workouts. There is a slight change in those plans. We will be doing the same things however on different days and times than originally planned. Here is a new outine for this week:

Monday: Parent/Coaches meeting at the high school (see below entry)
Tuesday: No Practice in the morning but open field in the evening
Wednesday: No Practice, 8-9:30 Sharon Woods Metro park (picnic area/running path)
Thursday: 11am-1pm Alum Creek Dam (below dam area)
Friday: 8-10am Hoff Woods park in Westerville
Saturday: 8-10am Middle School practice field
Sunday: off
Monday: 8-9:30 Middle School track

Directions to conditioning locations will be sent out next week by email.

Team Meeting Monday July 28th

Monday July 28th at 6pm there will be a parent/coaches meeting at the high school for those whose sons are planning on playing soccer. Parents, please make this a priority on your schedule. There will be important information given out to you all in regards to communication, volunteer needs, player development, upcoming events/schedules, fees, and goals for the season. This will be a great opportunity for me to meet some of you for the first time as well as introduce myself to the program. The last couple months have been very productive and I have enjoyed getting to know your sons! Now I want to get to know you all as well. See you there!

Along with the parent meeting, players can use this time to get their physical exams completed. In order to be able to particiapte in a fall sport each player must have this form turned in to the office. The high school is offering physicals starting at 6pm. There is a fee of $10 for this service.

Soccer: July 21-27th

The week we have practice Monday and Wednesday from 9-11:30 at the middle school.
Open fields will be both Tuesday and Thurday from 5:30-7
Bible Study will again be at the Cleveland Ave. fields Pavillion at 5 on Thursday (before open fields)
Friday morning the team (those who have signed up) will be leaving to go to Strongsville. We will be returning back at around 10pm Saturday night.....Parents/Players will be getting an email regarding the specifics later today.

Welcome

Welcome to the Worthington Christian High school's Boy's Soccer blog! I am making this blog in an effort to better communicate to the Worthington Christian soccer comunity. With all the information on the team in one spot this will allow parents, players, coaches and outsiders to get a quick update on the happenings with the team. This site will be used to post team events, outline schedules, connect to parents, and answer questions that may be presented. The blog will be kept up throughout each week with new information regarding the team. Please take the time to read through each postingand let me know if you have any questions.