Member of the Club:

Another wonderful weekend of soccer for the North Hills Soccer Club!

The In-House kids all played hard and seemed to enjoy themselves on a beautiful Saturday morning. The In-House programs are strong and continue to get stronger thanks to theefforts of the Commissioners, Don Alexander (Little Kickers), Shawn Scarsella (Boys U8), and RJ Franz (Girls U8). Thanks guys!

Speaking of RJ, let us congratulate him for obtaining his National Coaching E-License at the start of the season. This is no small accomplishment and takes quite a bit of dedication as one must basically sacrifice an entire weekend in order to complete the process (in addition to spending additional hours taking online classes before the actual classroom and field work). We are very fortunate to add RJ to the ranks of NHSC coaches with a national coaching license. The number of coaches who have taken the time to become nationally licensed is impressive when one considers these coaches are all volunteers and yet they continually strive to improve themselves for the betterment of our children.

As for the Community and Travel games, before I go into the scores, i must digress and jump onto my "soapbox" for a moment. I provide these scores to give everyone an opportunity to follow the progress of our Club, and we should not get lost in "wins" and "losses." While winning is important, it is not the major focus of our Club, the development of our youth is the primary goal. This isparticularly true for the younger children (U12 and under)as winning should always be secondary to development and improvement. That being said, the two are not mutually exclusive. Our goal is for our children to develop the fundamental skills needed in soccer, including that winning mentality they can carry with them through life. There have been studies that ideas such as trying your best, being treated with respect, and getting playing time are the most important factors to kids. Winning it seems is really only most important to us, the adults. Next time you’re watching your son or daughter play, forget the result at the end. The result only serves to guide your child on what they need to improve upon, nothing more.Kids tend to forget the score soon after the game is over, but are then constantly reminded of it by the adults. Coaches can only do so much in the development of our children for long term success, but we need help from you.

As for our teams, the U17 Girls continued their winning ways by going on the road and defeating the Pittsburgh Dynagirls 4-1 at the Schenley Oval. The U17 Boys played twogames and came away with a split, beating Pine Richland 2-1 and losing to a U19 North Allegheny team 4-2. Theybasically played them even 2-2 as two of the North Allegheny goals came on Penalty Kicks. The U14 Boys travelled to Shaler and lost 4-0, but they were shorthanded as many boys missed the game. The U12 Boys remained undefeated, playing to a 1-1 draw with Pine Richland. The U12 Girls played an undefeated West Allegheny team, losing 3-0. West Allegheny scored all of their goals in the first 15 minutes, but after that our girls rebounded and took the play to them. Unfortunately, a short bench and the Sunday heat were too much to overcome. Our U11 Boys lost another tough one, but these boys are playing hard and deserve credit as they are actually playing in a U12 league, showing no quit despite playing against bigger and older boys. Their counterpart, the U11 Girls also lost a heart breaker 3-1 to Avonworth. The U10 Travel Girls had a bye and the U10 Travel Boys lost to Freedom, the best (and still undefeated) team in their division 3-1. The boys played them even for the first half which ended 1-1, but they just did not have enough in the tank. The coach of Freedom mentioned after the game that this was the first true test that they have had this season. He was very impressed by our boys and the direction of our Club (these same teams played last season with North Hills losing 7-0). By far the best game our boys have played this season.

With regard to our Saturday Community teams, The Boys U9/10 teams split their games. The Wizards lost 7-1 with the lone goal coming on a nice breakaway shotby Eric Toledo. The Dragons won by the same score (7-1) with both Cooper Zippler and Jacob Messina contributing to the win with hat tricks. The U10 Girls (Red Rockets) played against Twin Boros and were victorious with a score of 13-0. Great Job Girls!!!! The U9 girls lost 4-2, but it was a very competitive game all around. We had 2 goalscalled back as the referees said the ball was notcompletely over the line. Great effort by our girls and Camryn Caroff made some great saves in goal.

Remember coaches, parents and Commissioners, keep the scores and summaries coming soI can include them in my Weekend Wrap-Up.

The weather is not looking too good for the weekend, but hopefully the rain will either pass or hold off until after our games.

Great job by everyone this past weekend, let us keep up the good work.

Happy belated Mother's Day to all of our moms. We appreciate all you do - even if we do not always show it!

This weekend, if you are not able to attend your child's game, when he/she comes home, instead of asking if they won, first ask them if they had fun. If they did, then they have already won regardless of the score.

I will see you all at Reis.

Take care.

Rick Kabbert

President - NHSC