Warning: Sports Post

Spring/Summer Soccer season is gearing up. Q plays for Wings the, local club team. They field three teams at U16, her age group. In most sports around here, by the time girls reach 16, the only opportunity to play is at the high school level and we live in an area of mega-schools. So the pyramid is steep and only the elite athletes get to play. The soccer leagues around here give the girls that didn’t make the cut a chance to play a team sport, with all the positive things that go along with that, and get some major exercise. Our club is a powerhouse at U16 girls. The top team consists of this years sophmores most of which played varsity at the high school. They were promoted to the Premier level last year after winning there conference. There’s only a handfull of premier teams in the state and the competition level is hellacious. Q’s team was also promoted last year. From the C3, the bottom level, to C2. They were the ones cut from the upper level teams. Q played on the upper level four years ago and was sent down. These girls have worked so hard and last year they had a great season. They won their conference, did well in tournament play and had ten shutouts. Q played almost every minute at right outside defender. Sometime I’m going to write about how she makes it look easy. She never looks like she’s hustling, yet the ball almost never gets down the line on her side.
I watched their practice for awhile. At the end they scrimmaged the other C2 team from the club. The one that Q got cut from. As Quinn said, I like those girls and we’re freinds in school, but on the soccer field, it’s different. There is bad blood between them. We played them pretty even. The first five minutes we had them completely bottled up in their end. They scored on a flukey goal, we didn’t have our regular keeper and the girl who was playing goal didn’t have gloves. She bobbled a shot and they scored on the rebound.
Q seemed happy after the practice, it’s nice to see a rare smile from her. I worry about that kid, she’s way too much like me. Endorphins must be good for her. She lifted wieghts in gym class, did a 90 minute tennis drill after school and then went right to a hard 90 minute soccer practice. This is after pretty much spending the winter holed up in the basement at the computer.

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