Lower Secondary Soccer
# BE _ ac tive
Lower Secondary Soccer
Ryan Yi, Jason Jang, Johannes Ha, Jimin EE, and Woo Bin Cha warm up before practice by running Suicides. A‘ suicide’ is a type of run, where players run back and forth from the goal line to the penalty circle line, then from the goal line to the 18 yard line, and lastly from the 18 yard line to the half line.
Top Row: Coach Francois, Monica Park, Eugene Jang, Sally Kwon, Coach Sarah Kim, Coach Lyons; Bottom Row: Seohyun Min, Lauren Ryu, Nicole Wang, Julie Lee, Soo Rin Kim, Ghayeon Kim, Grace Lee
Top Row: Coach Lee, Brian Lee, Ryan Yi, Kelvin Kim, Jimin EE, Tobey Lee, Kevin Ju, Eric Shin, Jude Joung, Maheshwari Navaodit; Middle Row: Ethan Hur, Woo Bin Cha, Ethan Kim, Junho Cha, Joseph Park, Keito Uchiyama, Yuito Kimura, Jonathan Lee; Bottom Row: Saran Watanabe, Keahi Brumsickle, Ethan Baek, Hyungwook Ku, Johnny Tuohy, Johannes Ha
For the 33 students, 23 boys and 10 girls who participated in soccer during the fall sports season, some spurring factors were the enjoyment of the sport, the ability to work well as a team, competition, building friendships, and adrenaline.
From a simple game played by children to a world renowned sport played by champions, soccer has evolved through experience, and so have those who play it. Those who participated in soccer were put through a lot of training to get to where they are now. The soccer players trained two hours a week after school. They did drills like high knees and lacing in and out of cones. After their warm-ups and stretches, they did exercises like passing the ball in a circle or playing a shadow game, where no ball is used but players pretend to pass to each other and play a game.
For Saran Watanabe, his love of the sport motivates him to push hard during drills and other exercises,“ Soccer is fun and requires you to be really athletic and energetic and improves your communication skills and social skills.” No matter what the training demanded from him, he kept persevering so he could
80 Fall Sports and Activities build friendships and develop other skills.
While he did not provide any specifics, Woobin Cha said he has played soccer since third grade and explained his motivation is that he“ really enjoys it [ soccer ]” and“ just really loves soccer.”
The girls soccer captain Monica Park thinks soccer is“ fun to play with a team.” She started playing soccer because her friends were playing and thought it would be fun to try. Despite having to train for endless hours, her dream of a sportsmanlike and competitive game fuels her determination.
The other girls soccer captain, Nicole Wang, explained she“ likes the way they play soccer.” The friendliness shown throughout the games shows how soccer can be competitive as well as friendly. Nicole mentioned because“ there are only eighth-grade girls, and no new faces, they work well as a team.”
The students participated in about seven jamborees, each jamboree contained three to four matches. The soccer teams won most of the games.