Emi's Hat

That's how it's done: Gareth centers the ball to Emi, whose shot to the far post is successfully intercepted by Bentley. And just like that, one minute in, we're up 1-0.

In quick order, a 1-0 lead becomes a 1-4 deficit. Then Blake centers the ball to Bentley who touches it to Emilio, who finds the net near the far post that he missed earlier.
We go into halftime down 2-5.
We're down 3-5 in the second half when Emi successfully nutmegs the center defender and just misses the far post.
When he gets another chance, under almost the same conditions, he skips the nutmeg and hits the spot he missed the first time and pulls us back to within a point 4-5.

Five minutes later, Emi turns on a corner, sends it through the keeper's legs, but the potential equalizer just misses the far post.
Less than a minute later, he gets a foot on Blake's corner but the ball bounces off the top post. Gareth hustles to keep the ball in play, and then Luke comes up from the defensive end to lift a pass into the box. Emi gets crushed between two defenders, but seconds later, when the ball bounces back his way, he's ready to score his third goal to tie the game 5-5.

With time running out, we're down 5-6 when Devin crosses the ball to Emilio in the box. But though an Emilio attack seems imminent, the ref blows the whistle. Game over.
Emi scores 3--a hat trick--giving him twenty-three goals in eight U-12 games this season.
Our division record is 4-1; our tournament record is 1-2.

Two-Sport Emi

Emi had a soccer game scheduled at 11:30 on Saturday at the same time that Pablo had a game scheduled in Ardmore. Emilio also had a basketball game scheduled on Saturday at 11:30 that he would have to miss because of his prior soccer commitment. But after I got to Ardmore, Mari texted me to say that the start time of Emilio's soccer game had been pushed back to 1:00 p.m., which gave him time to rush to the junior high school gym for the start of the basketball game. Mari filmed the videos below using her cellphone. They include Emi's first basket, a steal followed by a sweet pass on the fast break, and a one-handed steal that ended the first half.
At half-time, Mari took Emilio back to the soccer field, where he was to check in half-an-hour before game time. The videos below, also taken on Mari's cellphone, show a long crossing lead pass that produced the Spartans first score by Devin, and a second pass that set up Gareth for a great shot that didn't get in.

Nutmegging

According to my friends at Wikipedia, "nutmeg" means: "to kick, roll, dribble or throw the ball between an opponent's legs. It only counts if possession is retained after the ball has passed through the opponents legs. This can be done in order to pass to another player, to shoot on goal, or to carry on and retrieve it."

In the chaos that is 5th grade recess, Emilio seems to take as much pleasure from nutmegging his opponents as he does from scoring goals.

Though we did not win our third game in the Norman tournament, Emi executed an impressive nutmeg of one of his opponents. See photo above. That ball has just passed between the defender's feet, and Emilio is about to take control of it again on the other side.

Ada City Championship . . . in Norman

The Norman tourney begins with an 8:30 a.m. match up for the Ada City Championship--the only time Ada's two U-12 teams will face off against each other this year.

Offsides? Looks like an assist to me.

Score! This one, following a corner from Blake, puts us up 2-0.
Two minutes later: another corner, another score. We'll go into half-time leading 3-0.

After Ada Green pulls to within one, 3-2, this breakaway, Emi's third goal, puts the Spartans up 4-2. Shortly afterwards, coach gives Emi a breather. When he calls Emi back in to play defense, the score is tied 5-5. Fortunately, we score one more to win the city championship: 6-5.
After a two-hour break, we face Woodward, the same town that produced the Ardmore tournament champ. The score is 0-0 when Emilio launches this powerful shot.
An hour later: Emi's favorite play of the second game features some relentless Emilio dribbling against six Woodwards, leading to a pass to Devin.
We did not win. Emi did not get many chances.

Emi and KAWS at the Fort Worth Modern

Good Intention, 2015, by KAWS.
Untitled, Sculptural Study, Two-Part Standing Construction, 1978/2007 by Fred Sandback. He Eats Alone (Warm Regards), 2014, by KAWS.

Fall break!

We celebrated Fall Break this year with an overnight trip to Texas. Stop #1: a picnic with the Denton Bentons at Eureka 2 Park.

And then there was baskeball . . .

After one Sunday afternoon basketball practice, Emilio reported to the Junior High gym a block from our house for a "Scrimmage Festival" sponsored by the Lady Cougar Booster Club. The parking lot was full, the concession stand was busy, I paid $5 for my ticket and $3 for Pablo's (Nina and Mari had Girl Scouts), and we took our seats in the the crowded stands on the east side of the gym (no one was allowed on the west side, pictured in the video). This is the inaugural season of this intramural league organized by the Public Schools and due to a late start, jerseys won't be delivered until later in October. All the players are 5th graders. No official score was kept (except by the players!), and each coach used a substitution matrix to ensure that everyone got a chance to play (though Emi ended up playing almost 2/3 of the game). The game itself was played in two 20 minute halves, with clock stopping every 5 minutes for substitutions.
Emi started the first half at shooting guard and perfectly executed a backdoor cut evident in the photo above. During the initial five-minute segment, he was 1-3 with a rebound and a steal and we led 4-0. He didn't get any stats during his second 5-minute run, but he started the second half at point guard and had a flurry of stats that I soon lost track of. The highlight video below includes his first basket and a little taste to the style--including a wicked cross-over--that he displayed at point guard, including a couple of breakaway baskets he scored in the fourth-quarter on a run that narrowed a 15-point deficit into a 3-point deficit by game's end and contributed to the team-high 8 points Emi scored.

I may have created this video in part because the videographer was shouting encouragement to the player in one of the clips.

I feel point guard is Emi's his natural position on the court at this point in his career (that is, half-time of his first scrimmage).

Air Jordan 2K16?


This one went in.
Next games are October 29th at 11:30 (followed by a soccer game at 1:00!), November 5th at 11:30 (with a soccer game at 1:30!), November 19th at 11:30 and November 26th (Thanksgiving Saturday) at 9:30 and 10:30. All are Saturdays. (There is also a game on November 12th at 11:30, but we won't be able to make it because Emi has a soccer game in Shawnee that day at 1:00). And I suspect that Emilio will sign up for a Boys and Girls Club basketball season if one begins after soccer season ends.

Emi's Surprise Tourney: Day Two

Early in the first half of Emi's second tournament game with the U-14 team, Emi subbed in as a left forward and took a push in the box.

He later took another.
We were down 1-0 throughout much of the first half, before an own goal following a corner knotted us with Real Madill, 1-1. which remained the score at half-time.

Emi started the second half at forward.

11:36

This score by Phillip put us up for the first time in the game: 2-1. Alas, I did not record the pass Emi made to set up this run. It was probably Emi's tournament highlight.
After Madill tied it up again, another scoring run by Phillip gave us a 3-2 advantage.
11:43


11:50: With Phillip playing back on defense alongside Sam and Eli, Emilio led the forward line and delivered a nice pass to Ian.
Final score: Ada Energy 3, Real Madill 2. And after three matches, with one match to go, Ada Energy is in first place with a 1:30 p.m. match with Duncan awaiting.

Coach Rhoades chose Emi to start at forward in the final first-round game of the tournament.
Emi played hard. Unfortunately, the team did not enjoy many highlights. We were down 1-0 at half, couldn't make up the deficit, and did not advance. Ugh. The agony of defeat.

Tournament Surprise!

After watching Nina's team play in their first Monsterball Tournament game in Ardmore, Emilio skipped a lunch date at Pizza Hut to watch the first tournament game for the U-14 Ada Energy, which includes many teammates (Sam, Angel, Logan, Dexter, Colton, Ian) from the U-12 team Emilio played on last year as a nine-year-old. When Nina's coach saw Emilio, he asked him if wanted to play. "Yes!" was the answer, and after talking to the U-14 coach, he made it happen. So after Pablo's game in Atoka ended, he and I drove back to Ada to pick up Emi's cleats, shorts, and shin guards, and headed down to Ardmore. Emi wore Nina's jersey (because the U-14 team already had a #10; they also had a #7, but we didn't know that) and yellow socks borrowed from Dex, who couldn't stick around the U-14's 5 p.m. game against the Ardmore Thunder (whom the Energy lost to 5-4 when they played on September 24th).
Emi subbed in at left midfielder, with the score 1-0 in our favor, and almost connected on a corner. Afterwards, he looked over at me, thinking "Did you see how close I was to making that?"


From the defensive end of the field, Emi forwarded the ball to set up a score by #29, center forward, Phillip Jones--Emi's best play of the game. Phillip gave Emilio a high-five just before I took this picture.

We went into half-time leading 3-0.
Emi came again at left midfielder in the second half.

Final score: Ada Energy 4, Ardmore Thunder 2.
At the end of the first day of the Tournament, the Ada Energy is tied for second place with Woodward (the team they played to a 1-1 tie in Saturday's first game), and Emilio has been invited back to play in the Energy's 10:30 game against Real Madill on Sunday (whom the Energy beat 3-0 on September 10th).

Season Ten, Game Four: Spartans vs. Midwest City Force

The Force score first. And then, sixteen minutes in, Emi's first ties it up 1-1.
Ten minutes later, seconds before halftime, Emi intercepts a careless goal kick and wastes no time in netting it.  We go in to halftime leading 3-2.
Late in the second half, Emilio hangs around the top of the box and is Johnny-on-the-spot when Blake gets him a free ball. That's goal #3, and we're up 4-2. Unless they called Devin (#2) for being offsides and disallow the goal? Emi takes Blake's inbounds and wills it off the goal-keeper's mitts and the far post and into the net.

Coach says we win 5-4  (I thought it was 6-4). Our record is now: 4-0.
Emi scores four, giving him seventeen through four games.
Next up:  Tournament play on Saturday, October 22.

Season Ten, Game Three: Spartans vs. Harrah Punishers

At 1:16, Emi escapes the goalkeeper and serves a sweet assist to Devin for the first score of game.

One minute later, Emi almost gets Devin another. After Devin loses control, Emi comes across the field steals the ball, loses it, gets it back again and gets off a shot from near the top of the box that hits the net, and we're up 2-0.
Thirteen minutes later, Emi takes control near midfield and takes a shot from the top of the box. That's goal #2 for Emi.
Just seconds into the second half, Emi picks a pocket and makes scoring his third look easy. Mami likes.
Three minutes later, Blake's corner makes it all the way across the field and back before Emilio's foot finds it off the bounce and converts it into his fourth goal of the game.
Emi uses his body to take control of this one and get it in the net following another Blake corner, but he is called for offsides, and the goal does not count.

After the coaches tell Emilio to spread the love, Emi takes a throw-in and delivers a good-looking crosser to Bentley that's just a little too fast.
Emilio uses his thigh to field this bouncing throw-in from Blake and converts it into his fifth goal of the game.

Spartans win 10-1 and have a 3-0 record on the season.
Emi scores 5 goals and has 13 through three games.