The holidays are over and once again it is time for the most stressful time of the year…soccer conditioning season. This past week marked the start of pre-season training for our girls’ soccer team. The first day consisted of sprinting through the wooden hallway, and the second was spent completing an interval workout on the track. Training is run by our three coaches: Mike Koper, John Lynch and Luke Mason, who have all had playing experience at the college level
Usually when the coaches play with us they have little competition as we are teenage girls and significantly smaller. Coach Koper in particular dances around the field with the ball, teasing us and making us think we can steal it from him. Sometimes in his moments of cockiness, we do, though those times are few and far between. Last night, however, I was able to watch him play competitively in a local semi-professional indoor league. This is the first season the Winchester Impact has been established and the team consists of men of all ages. I attended with one of my friends who is home from Mary Washington University and knew players from the opposing Fredericksburg team. The game was extremely intense, resulting in a close 10-8 win clenched by Fredericksburg. Indoor soccer is increasingly physical as the playing field is smaller and walls are used to prevent balls from leaving the area. The surface allows for the ball to travel with a greater pace than that of an outdoor field making it a game of exhaustion. Though I’d seen my coach, a former college standout, play before, it was truly a different experience seeing him battle against players of equal or greater skill level. Instead of simply dribbling through several players at once, he had to work for his goal. I must admit it was enjoyable to see him have to put the effort in to produce results, which isn’t always the case at our high school practice. For once he was occasionally the underdog trying to prove his skills which was a nice turn of the tables. I’ll watch what I say, however, as he’s one of the key coaches who initiates the sprints at conditioning throughout these next few weeks of training.
|
Save
Email
Print
del.icio.us 
Google
Yahoo 
digg