Soccer season starring the Seaton Stingers, Part III: Learning positions

Do you remember your first time on a team? Learning how to play a sport? DC SCORES intern Luiza Kieffer is spending this fall with the Seaton Elementary School Stingers, documenting the team’s progress on a weekly basis as Coach Blake teacher the kids basic skills, the rules of soccer, and how to be on a team. For more, follow @DCSCORESinterns and watch Luiza’s videos on YouTube.

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Written by Luiza Kieffer
Digital Media Intern

Nov. 3, 2015

This week Coach Blake’s main goal is focusing on transitioning and being aware on the field. Coach starts the practice with playing a game of “Harvest soccer," which requires everybody to be a different vegetable. So Blake starts yelling out vegetable to different kids

“Lorenzo you’re a carrot, Gabby you’re a squash!” After everybody receives their vegetable name, Coach Blake explains the game to them. Setting up the cones in a rectangle, he then puts a goal on the side and everybody grabs a soccer ball. The instructions: Everyone starts running and then when Blake calls out a vegetable, whoever that vegetable is must use their techniques to run around other players and shoot in the net. This helps the kids improve on looking up before shooting and paying attention to their surroundings.

After playing a couple games of Harvest soccer, they start a new drill of small-sided soccer. Coach splits up the team into girls and boys, and they both have their own scrimmages so Blake can really help individual kids when needed. And of course at the end of the practice, he brings the team back in for a big game of scrimmage -- boys and girls.

Throughout the scrimmage whenever someone makes a goal, everybody screams out, “Goal, goal!” -- happy for whichever team scores.

In just the span of a couple weeks, the Seaton Stingers have transformed into a wonderful team and it has shown through their hard work and improved skills.

“My team is really good at playing, we win almost every game," says Taylor, 10. "I think it’s because of how we are working together and the positions we play. And we’re really good at defense.”

“They're getting a lot more aware of where their teammates are,” says Coach Blake, talking about the little improvements they are making that will affect games in positive ways.

After the game, I ask Lorenzo, 10, “Why do you like playing soccer so much?”

“I always wanted to play because my cousin and my friends play," he responds.

The community that these kids are building through playing soccer goes far outside the games and practices. It translates to their homes as well.

I can’t wait to see how much more these kids will improve in the last few weeks of the fall season.