MYSA Lunachicks Soccer

Enjoying the holiday vacation yet with all the kids at home yet? If the girls are driving you nuts, with the weather fairly warm, encourage them to go outside and work on their juggling.

Juggling strikes them as the most useless thing because they think ‘I never juggle in a match’ I’ve actually seen players juggle a ball to turn 180 degrees around defenders, but that’s not why it is so important.

Juggling develops a softer touch on the ball and helps them build confidence that they can stop/settle any type of ball coming at them. So PLEASE encourage them to juggle if they get bored this holiday. We still haven’t had a player attempt 35 for their patch, but I know if they work at it, they can achieve that.

It’s as simple as that – if they want to develop a soft touch like other teams they have played against, they need to juggle whenever they’re bored and have a soccer ball around. We all talk about tactics, lack of passing, effort, mentality, etc. in terms of how the team is doing, but if they work to improve their juggling and develop a soft touch, that will set the stage for them to do so much more, knowing the ball will BE there for them to do something with when it comes to them.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and has a Happy New Year! See everyone Jan 5th!

GO LUNACHICKS!

Hopefully everyone is enjoying the hustle and bustle before the holidays! We’re hard at work on our Spring schedule and will have some updates on that soon. Since our playing season will begin February 7th, we’re going to be starting practice a bit earlier than normal. Starting the week of January 5th, our practice schedule for January will be as follows:

• Mondays 6:30-8 Field MSC-4D
• Thursdays 6:30-8 Field MSC-4D
• Saturdays 10:30-12 Field MSC-4D

We understand many of the girls have winter sports/activities like basketball and absolutely expect them to make those their top priority early in our season. Just try to make all the practices you can without impacting your winter activity.

Our season will get underway at the FVAA Presidential Classic February 7th and 8th in Fuquay-Varina/Raleigh. Then it looks like we’ll start our regular season play February 14th, though that is still being worked out. We should have our official schedule after January 10th.

The coaching staff are also working on filling in our season with other activities. Some possibilities include:

• Some friendlies in January and possibly in April if we have dates available.
• Beat The Heat Tournament – April 25/26 in Winston-Salem
• Seaside Classic Tournament – May 16/17 in Wilmington – BEACH TRIP!
• One or two girls clinics. The first was a huge success, and we’d like to try and hold one or two of these clinics again, maybe in combination with a friendly match or something. Still working on this.
• I think we need to take the girls to play paintball. If your insurance is paid up! But in all seriousness, it might be neat to do a fun non-soccer activity as a team sometime this season
• End of season pool party

We’re always open for suggestions! Again, the above are just ideas at this point. We may only do one of the post season tournaments or we may do both. Depends on what you all are up for.

That’s it for now.

GO LUNACHICKS!

HUGE CONGRATULATIONS TO COACH MIKE!!!  The North Carolina Youth Soccer Association awarded him Girls’ Challenge Coach of the Year for 2008!  The girls delivered the news last night at our local Blue Ribbon Diner and he was VERY surprised!

The Lunachicks and the ‘Fringe’ had a great evening celebrating with Coach Mike!!  We are privileged and honored to have our ENTIRE coaching staff and to be a part of the Lunachick family.  Of course, the folks at Blue Ribbon were probably VERY glad to see us leave, but we surely made our own brand of Lunachick fun while we were there

Also celebrating with us were many MYSA league officials, Board Members, MYSA Director of Coaching, friends, past players, and past parents from previous teams that Coach Mike had been a part of.  Thanks to ALL for coming out and making this a very special evening!

Hope to see as many of the girls and the Fringe as we can get on Sunday, December 7th at Blue Ribbon!  Time is 4:00.  Remember to let Leslie know if you are coming so that we can prepare the wait staff for the invasion!!!  This will be a short and low key get together for the team, but also a very special one for all of us!!!  A surprise ending to a surprising season!  Promise – no pillows…GO LUNACHICKS!!!

Hopefully everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving and enjoyed their vacations! I appreciate everyone taking the time to read yet another epic Coach Mike email during this busy time and getting back to us over the holiday weekend.

With the agreement of all 14 Lunachick families, the Lunachicks will be moving up to Classic this Spring. I’ve informed the league of the team’s decision and am processing the necessary paperwork to make it official. Congratulations ladies! We’ll now be known as the ’96 MYSA Lunachicks G

I’ll send more administrative details later this month as there is some paperwork we’ll need from each family.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season! As I noted before – official practices won’t begin until sometime in January, but we may have a few informal pickup matches before then if the girls are getting stir crazy, especially after Christmas.

GO LUNACHICKS!

UPDATE: It’s official – Here’s our team page on the NCYSA Classic Website.