Post from Coach Brough:

Roger

Today was a frustrating game for us as a team.  As I think back on the things I saw today, our first touch and lack of patience in maintaining possession really hurt us.  I believe we were a better team in a number of ways, but the most prominent thing that we can learn from Park City's team was the speed of play with regards to ball movement.  They were excellent at taking controlling first touch and then looking to distribute quickly to their moving teammate. 

Please recognize the operative words in the previous sentences (italicized). I don't want to dwell on the things that we didn't do well or execute, but it's important to recognize where we fell short, learn from them, and re-double our efforts to improve those parts of our game that are lacking.  The previous paragraph's last sentence is something I would LOVE for our team to be better at.

I've listed some things for us to work on below, but most importantly, I want to see and feel that we have collectively "bought-in" as a team to a vision that we all agree on.  Please come ready tomorrow to work hard and discuss what this will be for our team this year: 

THINGS TO IMPROVE:

1. Individual work/effort...aka "hustle", particularly on defense; and everyone defends.

2. Communicating with teammates.

3. Playing simple and patiently, maintaining possession until an opportunity arises.

4. First touch.  This was killer today, and something we all need to work on individually.  **Just like a music group, we have to work on our own craft/skills and then bring that to practice to put together as a whole team.**

As a last side note, I was a bit perturbed on the bus ride home as many players were joking and laughing with each other after a poor team performance.  I would have hoped that players would have taken to heart what I said on the bus a bit more seriously: "Taking the time to analyze your individual efforts and contributions on the field today and see what you can do to improve yourself for your own satisfaction and the betterment of the team."  Just like Coach Taylor's previous blog post about Varsity's game vs. Corner Canyon (2nd-to-last paragraph), we need to be all about the success of the team...I believe that is fundamental to the success and vision that we need to have for this season.

Thank you for working hard, and let's get back to it tomorrow!

Player of the game: Marc Bichon (again)

"If you fail to prepare, then you are preparing to fail." - Benjamin Franklin