End and the Beginning

The End of one sport and the Beginning of the next.

Ashley ended her bowling season with a team banquet at which she won the Most Improved Player award for the JV.  We are very proud of her and I really like the girls on the bowling team.  They are friendly girls and very supportive of each other.  It was a good season.

She also had tryouts for the girls' soccer team.  The school usually has a Varsity, JV and Freshman team.  There was lots of confusion throughout the tryout about whether they would have 2 or 3 teams and whether they were going to have an exclusively Freshman team.  This is a new coaching staff and they were still trying to figure out what to do.  It seemed like every day they would cut 5 girls and then have a new plan for the teams.  Literally during the week long tryouts, one day we thought Ashley made the team and then the next day they cut more girls, so we were a little confused about if tryouts were over or not.

When all was said and done, Ashley did make the team.  They decided to have 1 varsity team and 2 JV teams.  So Ashley is on the JV which is where we expected her to be.  I personally am happy about having 3 teams.  I would much rather have Ashley play in games than sit on the bench and never get in.

She has definitely had to adjust to the level of intensity and conditioning required at the high school level.  She has had to get in shape fast.  She actually has a very demanding schedule right now.  On top of her schoolwork, she goes to rehearsals for the musical, has soccer practice every day including Saturdays, still has early morning seminary and to top it off is swimming everyday in PE.  Her days are long and physically exhausting right now.  I've had to take her dinner at school a few times already because she is there so late.  So far she has been able to stay on top of it all and she is enjoying herself so we will see how it goes.

Right before the first game, Ashley got tackled during practice and fell and hit her head on the gym floor.  She hit it so hard, the coaches pulled her out and evaluated her for a concussion.  Not the way we hoped to start the season, but fortunately she was okay and went on to play well in her first game.

So far, most practices have been indoors because of all the snow and poor field conditions. The two games they have played have been at schools with turf fields.  Looks like they will probably keep playing away games on turf fields for a while.