Amherst Soccer Association

Game Summaries

2008 Outdoor League Season

FRI 05/02 Amherst Athletic vs Akron Tsunami / WIN 8-0

We came out and were a little sloppy at the start, but we have a number of girls that this was their first outdoor travel game. We were also short a few players, but we stuck with it and figured it out in the end. We could tell we have been playing indoors the last few months because it was like the game was in slow motion with the grass so high. The girls turned it up in the second half as we started to go to the net a little harder. It will take some time getting used to the outdoor grass because we have been spoiled for some time now indoors, but these girls can do it. It was funny on the sidelines because we would score and it was like we have done it a thousand times and it was no big deal to the girls. Akron has players that have all played travel for 1-2 years now so it was a great challange off the start, but we did fine. Great start to the outdoor league girls, now lets move ahead and improve on our play. The indoor teams that are good that want revenge will come up soon!!!

FRI 05/09 6:30 PM Amherst Athletic at Delaware Stingers MEADOW POINT #2 / Tie 2-2

FRI 05/16 6:30 PM Amherst Athletic at Hamburg Monarchs Gold NIKE 10’S A / Win 14-2

FRI 05/23 6:30 PM Northtowns Jaguars at Amherst Athletic ECC-RANDALL #1 / Win 5-1

2008 Epic Indoor Season

1/13/08 Epic Game vs Northtowns A team / Lost 6-1

It was our first game in the Epic center, and we played a bit nervous at the start, and gave up at the end. This is expected this early with a team that has new players added to it, some without travel experience. In the next few weeks we will start to play as a team once we get some time on the field together. The coaches feel we outplayed the other team and were in their zone the majority of the game; they just made plays on our mistakes. All 6 of their goals were score on our transition out of our zone and came from outside the 18 yard box with our keeper out of the net. We as a team will work on this in the coming weeks. We were impressed with our control of the ball and the forward movement down the field. There were no “boots” by our defense up the field which we have worked on these past few weeks. Keep your heads up girls I guarantee we will improve with the hard work you have given so far this year.

1/20/07 Epic Game vs South Buffalo Shirttails A team / Won 14-0

Well the way you fix a transition problem is don’t let the other team shoot on net I guess. The girls played great as a team this week and we as coaches have seen a huge change already in their play. We improved on staying in our positions this week, but still need some work which we will do this week in practice. We have changed the formation from last year, so girls are playing positions and having responsibilities that are new to them so we knew this would be a work in progress. The girls that are new to the travel league seemed a little more relaxed. Parents, we are asking the kids to play a different style of soccer this year and they will need some time to adjust so stay with us and you will see a difference in the end. The other things we were impressed with was the movement up the field has continued to improve every week. We played the ball to our outside midfielders more this week, and we stayed out of the middle of the field. We had a couple of kicks up the field by the defense, but they will diminish as we go along. We had one scare of taking the ball across our own net, but we responded as a team to fix that mistake. Keepers did a great job in the work they had. Defense was strong. We will work on staying aggressive, and applying constant pressure at all times during the game. Our center mid sometimes gets to deep on the offense, and once again that is due to the new formation. A few times she was deeper than our high player (center striker). Our team also did a great job of spreading the field and that is a direct result of playing our positions, and our high player playing as deep as they allowed us. Corner kick formation was great, and we had a nice goal off of it early in the game. We would like to see the midfielders play the ball to the defense more when we get into the other teams zone. That means our defense has too push up the field and be alert. Great job girls….. We are all proud of you, and keep up the good, hard work :)

1/27/08 Epic Game vs Clarence A / Tie 2 - 2

Once again a great team game. We have continued to improve on our positioning, as well as our play of the ball up the field, with constant pressure. We controlled the momentum of the game throughout the game and had several opportunities to score, and have managed to stay out of the middle of the field and play it up the sides. In week one at Epic I felt like we had our whole team in the middle and we had a tough time playing positions. We would try to run down the middle of the field, no matter how many defenders were in our way. This week was a different story. We made great plays to the outside players and moved the ball forward. Our outside midfielders did a great job moving the ball up the side, and making great crossing passes to the middle. They are great steps forward in our development goals, and will continue to add to them in the weeks to come.

Some of the little things that we will focus on in the next few weeks:

1. Continue to play your positions; we have some girls out of place at times still.

2. Getting back on goal kicks, and goalie throws. We are in too deep and then end up playing from behind.

3. On throw ins, keeping the marked players in front of us.

4. Center Midfielder needs to get back, and help with defensive support.

5. More work with the keepers on clearing.

6. Set plays.( Kick off, throw-ins, corner kick, ect)

7. Crossing plays/switching the fields.

8. On field communication between players.

9. Midfielders moving up the field to let the defense bring the ball up to them.

We as a team did something else that I am glad happened this early in the girl’s development. We were able to come from behind to tie the game, and at one point I thought we would pull ahead. This is a huge step forward. In the first game at Epic we were down and my biggest issue at that point was that the girls shut down, and gave up. This week was a new story. It’s nice to do this early like I said because then the girls can see that they have the ability to come back and play great no matter what the score is on the board. We had several nice plays by our girls, and even had a number of scoring opportunities with shots that went off goal posts and cross bars. Our defense pushed up the field at the end of the game to give us some added support in the offensive zone. We gave up a few breakaways due to that gamble, but our keepers made great saves and keep us in the game. The coaches are pleased with the play of our girls, and are extremely happy to have such a good group of girls too work with. Keep up the good work!!!

On a side note: “Parents on the other side”

This group of girls do a great job a cheering their teammates on the side lines. It has improved since day one, so every now and then as the game is going on give a little peek at the girls on the sideline, because they are all into the game and that’s a good thing to see that they are all rooting for one another to succeed. I still have a ringing in my ears from them screaming when they scored to tie the game!!!

2/10/08 Epic Game vs Amherst-Boca Juniors / Tie 2 - 2

2/17/08 Epic Game vs Clarence B / Win 8 - 0

The girls play tonight was phenomenal. We were limited to only one sub tonight due to girls on vacation, but they played tough. We had to have one player play sick with a temperature earlier in the day, and I thank her and the other girls for playing through the adversity tonight, but they seemed to enjoy it at the end.

Once again we controlled the flow of the game from start to finish which is our main focus at this point in their development. We had some minor breakdowns on positioning, but this was mainly due to girls being overaggressive to make a play. The thing that the coaches were happy to see was the ability of the girls to play the ball back to our pressing support players. We had seen it once during the game in the first half, and we as coaches were relieved to see that it clicked with one girl. After I seen it on the sidelines I said it will start to catch with the rest of the girls now….and it did because a minute later another girl tried it. We were also pleased with the passing during the game. We worked on passing, and taking the ball down the side on Saturday and it seemed to work. We had a lot of leading passes and thru passes to our players on breaks.

Our defense has started to play more aggressive as well, and they are quick to attack the other team’s offensive play. They are communicating and covering for one another when they are back. We have improved on our throw in’s and our corner kicks as well. We will continue to work on these set plays on Thursdays practice. We will also try to address crossing, and work with our center midfielders on their support and play. Thanks again!!!!

2/24/08 Epic Game vs Grand Island / Win 9 - 0

We continue to improve as a team in our passing, and possession of the ball. We have started to eliminate mistakes, and the girls are more comfortable with the ball. We are playing our positions well, and when we played this team you could see how playing our positions was important. They followed the ball around the field and were all massed together. We did a great job staying in our positions and switching the field. The girls are starting to trust that someone will get them the ball if they stay in their positions. Defense did a great job moving up the field and being in position of support. We made great passes back to them and even had a few give and goes which we worked on this past week. Thursdays practice was great and it showed in their play.

I would like the girls to attack the net more in the coming weeks. We get the ball deep, but we would like them to go to the net harder. We did a better job of staying off-sides this week, which is hard with an aggressive, fast group of girls. We have had every girl on our team score after only 6 games which I love to see because we do not rely on one player to make our team, we rely on everyone!!!

This week’s plans:

Thursday we will work on drills, and we will finish with a small scrimmage.

Saturday: We will scrimmage the entire time if Thursday’s practice goes well.

Thanks again girls for your hard work!!!!

3/2/08 Epic Game vs Northtowns / Win 3 - 2

Wow!!! One of the best U-10 games I have ever seen. Other teams were there to watch the game, and the Northtowns team had the boys U10 team there to cheer them on. It did not matter in the end. It was nice for the girls to play good against a team we lost to in the first game. It shows the girls we have improved as a team. We received goals from 3 different girls in the game. We played as a team from start to finish. They were awesome in the first half, and came back and tied it in the second, and pulled off the go ahaid goal with 7 minutes left in the game. I could not believe how well they played together. That is a very strong team and we played them well. We did get tired at the end, but we stayed with it. We are the only team to score on them in Epic. Great job girls, we knew you could do it, and keep up the good work. It looked like we won the world cup at the end of the game!!!

3/9/08 Epic Game vs South Buffalo / Win 6 - 0

3/30/08 Epic Game vs Amherst-Fire / Tie 0 - 0

4/6/08 Epic Game vs Clarence A / Tie 2 - 2

Playoffs

4/13/08 TBA vs Northtowns / Win 4 - 3

Once again the games between us and the Northtowns team are always a good one to watch and be a part of. We came out strong and took a 3-0 lead early in the game. Northtowns closed the gap over time to make it 3-3. With 10 minutes left we put the go ahaid goal in to make it 4-3 and get the win to move us to the championship game. Great work girls.

4/27/08 TBA vs Amherst-Fire / Win 5 - 3 CHAMPIONSHIP

A very well played game by all the girls. We controled the ball well and moved it around to all positions. We did give up a few breakaway goals by being aggressive on defense, but I was happy to see that type of play. We cycled the ball around a few times trying to get them out of position due to their bunching which shows that we now can pick up where to play the ball. Great job girls with you hard work, and tough play in the indoor season. We finished with 7 wins, 1 loss (from our first game), and 4 ties. Every player had a goal midway through the 12 game schedule. We are all proud of you, and look forward to our outdoor season.

Scrimmage

12/14/07 Scrimmage vs Hamburg Gold U10 A Team / Won 11-1

We played a great game, and we have started to improve on the things that we as coaches have stressed for you to do. That is to control the ball, and make soccer moves during the play of the game. Our defense did a great job moving the ball up the field, and passing. We had a number of girls score goals which shows we played as a team. The final score was 11-1, but Katie don’t worry….that goal was a hand ball!!! Great job girls.

12/14/07 Scrimmage

4/26/08 Scrimmage vs West Seneca / Won 18-1

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