So I got a text a couple weeks ago asking to see if Vitoria, my U12 team, could come play in the Frozen 4 Tournament in Ankeny. I thought, “That would be fun.”

But now to find a team. I only needed 4 players, but when most of your team play basketball during the winter, 4 may be too many. I quickly went to our website, sent out an email, and waited.

X was going to play so I was a quarter to my quota. I got another email real quick. Halfway home.

Then nothing.

A couple days passed, so I decided to email individual players to get a yes or no. A few emails later, I had 4, then 5.

Practice starts March 6th and it’s unfortunate that this will be the first time all winter that half of Vitoria gets to play together. Anyway, I’m hopeful that we will be competing against real U12 11 year olds. If we are playing against the U11 team that we played in the Fall of 2011, this could get ugly.

I remember signing X up for futsal in West Des Moines a couple years ago. She was put on a team with kids a year younger and a year less developed. Her teammates were playing up. She was playing her age.

She hated it.

The only thing her teammates would do is pass her the ball and let her score. Since she was playing against other kids who were also a year younger… it wasn’t pretty. I’ve seen X scored hundreds of times. There is more to soccer than that, and she likes the competition. Not a regurgitated U6 experience,

Anyway, hopefully Vitoria will be playing against kids who are the same age, skill level (or higher) and size as X’s team. Either way, I’m bringing the kids player passes. Just in case the other teams parents dispute our monster sized U12 girls.