The McGilvra Tigers had their last soccer practice of the season tonight. I got a little bit of video of one of Sennet’s scrimmages… He’s in a Sounders jersey with orange practice top, blue sweats with white stripes. The “goals” are the two little orange cones at each end of their small scrimmage field.
I like that he scored that first goal with his right foot and the second one with his left.
Ryan and I took Ziya and Sennet to the last regular season Sounders match tonight. They opened up the whole stadium and were expecting over 53,000 to show up.
We played Real Salt Lake, and the playoffs – for us – were on the line: win and we’re in. Draw or lose, and we would need a lot of help.
Apparently the Sounders decided they didn’t want to rely on anyone else – so they scored three goals in the first twenty minutes: Clint Dempsey at five minutes, Marco Pappa at ten, and Dempsey again just before twenty. We let one get past us in the 77th minute and the game ended 3-1.
The kids had a blast, Ryan and I both enjoyed the rout, and the Sounders clinched the playoffs. Which they’ve now done every single year since their founding in 2009.
vid
Post script: looks like we’ll be facing LA this Wednesday night, at home, for the first round of the playoffs. Of course it’s the Galaxy, who usually seem to have our number…
We got the 4th seed and would host all games except against the Red Bulls or Crew if we make it to the MLS Cup.
PPS: I just read that the attendance tonight was 55,435! That gives the Sounders a new MLS average attendance record of 44,245/match for the year! That average puts us ahead of Liverpool and Chelsea, and would put us in 3rd place in all of Serie A, 3rd place in Ligue 1, 4th place in La Liga, and 5th place in the Premier League! Also ranks us at number 28 in the world. (Our lowest attended match this year was 35,175 – which is still higher than 98.1% of all the MLS games played outside of Seattle). Seattle also has a league record 124 consecutive sell-outs at Century Link Field.
I know, I know I am really behind on posting photos so I am going to lump a few things together. I went with Sennet’s school on 2 field trips recently. One was to the Seattle Children’s Theaters to see Piggy and Elephant. I wish I could say it was awesome but it isnt really my thing Its apparently not Sennets thing either because he spent most of the time asking when it would be over. The next day we went to Tilth Garden. Once again we were blessed with amazing October weather. This weekend was Monster Mash at his school and he looked forward to that all week!
Jac, Chais and Sennet
Mohini, Greta and Isla
Valeria
Connor and Max
Chais, Sennet and Sean
Olive, Marcella, Mohini
jasper, Chloe, Kiran, Sadie, Connor, Max, Jac
Bradley and Reef
Jac
Chais
John Andrew (new kid who likes playing with Chais and Sennet and I sensed some jealousy) and Chais
Greta
My co-worker Tony has season tickets to the Sounders FC, and they were out of town last week so he gave me tickets to the game against the Vancouver Whitecaps. Sennet and I took the light rail down to the stadium for the 7pm game. Tony’s tickets are in the ECS section (The Emerald City Supporters) which is where the hard-core fans stand and sing and chant through the whole game. Sennet liked it, but it was a bit overwhelming and loud, and just before half time he asked if we could move. I found us some seats in the upper deck right at the edge, unobstructed view.
Seattle won 3-0 and it was a really fun game to watch.
Sennet started his first organized soccer season a few weeks ago. He plays for the McGilvra Tigers in the Boys under-7 league. I signed up to be an assistant coach or volunteer, but surprise – they made me head coach. Annoying, but I did find out that McGilvra has professional trainers from UK Elite Trainers that come and run the practices – so I really don’t have to do anything for those. For the games I kind of run a mix between being a ref and a coach, along with the opposing team’s coach doing the same thing. It seems to be working out fine. We have one practice a week, on Monday evenings, at Washington Park in the Arborteum just down the hill from our house, and one game a week on Saturdays at Jefferson Park up on Beacon Hill. It’s so much more convenient than when we had to drive all the way across the city for Tee Ball.
The Tigers have had three games so far, and are undefeated. The games are three-on-three with no goalie, so if someone gets open it’s pretty easy to score. The first game was 11-4 and Sennet scored 8 goals. The second game was 7-3 with Sennet scoring 3 goals. This past Saturday the Tigers won 5-3 and Sennet had another 3 goals. It’s got to the point where if he gets on a break he’ll dribble to the goal, tap the ball easily in for a score, and just kind of jog back to the center of the field – almost of nonchalantly. He really likes the games, but I think he probably needs a higher level of competition. He’s quite a bit bigger and faster (and better) than the other kids. One game Stacie overheard a few of the opposing moms saying things like, “There is NO way he’s a 6-year old.” Sennet lately has been saying that he’s going to be work more on defense and try to do some back heel passes to his teammates (his words).
Last year Sennet rode 8 miles for the Move-A-Thon to raise money for his school, John Stanford International School. This year he said he wanted to ride at least 10 miles.
We got down to Gas Works Park around 10 and he immediately began riding, not waiting until his friends Jac and Ewan arrived. He had 3 laps (3 miles) finished before his buddies showed up. He also rode with Bradley, another school friend and TeeBall teammate. They all rode together for a while, taking intermittent breaks now and then, and eventually Sennet got a few more laps in by himself and soon he was at ten miles.
He wanted to do a few more to fill in the whole outside of his punch card, that they give the kids to proof they rode. He rode another 2 laps for a nice, even 12 miles. A successful money-raiser.