Patrick Lewis (Senior Project)

On Monday I had a practice for my lightning team. As I have already completed my online nutrition and coaching courses, as well as all my hours, there was nothing to fit in during the day. My lightning practice consisted of mostly fitness as we have an upcoming tournament. With the possibility of having to play 4 games in 3 days, we must be in top physical shape to have a shot at winning it all. Our coach focuses a lot on quick, intense sprints rather than long endurance. We ended practice with finishing and attacking. Tomorrow will be my final day with Kearsarge United. I plan on running the entire practice with the u13's. We will work on attacking play and fitness, as they too have a tournament this weekend.

This past week was an awesome last week to (almost) wrap-up my senior project. I finished up my second and final online coaching class with US Soccer online. I am now officially registered and recognized as a u10 and u12 by the official soccer organization of the United States. This was a big accomplishment for me, as I have found a passion for coaching and these two courses allowed me to better myself as a coach in so many different ways. I really enjoyed these classes, they were far more interesting and enjoyable than the nutrition classes for me personally. The practices this week were awesome, all the teams are showing immense improvement, especially the u10’s, u13’s and u18’s. The u13’s are currently undefeated, yet to lose a single game and are dominating most of their opponents. This is great for them, as many of them are actually younger than the average age for this league. There really weren’t too many surprises this week, aside from how long some of the online courses took m

This morning I completed the last of my nutrition classes. There was no certification or license for this one, it was more just relaxed. I spent about 2 hours on this course discussing metabolism of unprocessed and processed foods. This afternoon I had a game for Lightning. It was a very intense game, and in the last 5 minutes I earned us a pk and Liam put it away to win the game. It was an awesome team effort to take down one of the top teams in New England. Next weekend we have our final tournament, so practices this week will consist of intense fitness drills.

On Saturday I had another long day of Kearsarge United games. The first game the u13's took on a very good opponent in Hampshire FC. It wasn't our best performance, as we struggled to control possession or get shots on target. But luckily our star striker Davin scored a hatrick. His final goal came in the last 5 minutes, to put us on top 3-2. Although it was a poor performance, we were very lucky to scrape by with a win. Next, the u10's took on GPS New Hampshire. GPS is the #1 team in the state. We put up a great fight, losing just 3-2 with some awesome goals and exciting plays. It was an awesome game to watch. Later that day I played soccer for a few hours with some of my Proctor buddies and we ran some drills that my club coach likes to do. I totaled 8 hours today.

Today was another long day of online classes. I finally completed my online course for 9v9's for US Soccer. It was pretty interesting. At the end of this course, similar to the end of the 7v7 course, I had to take another safety course. It discussed emergency protocols surrounding cardiac arrests and concussions. Today I also spent some time planning my teams starting lineups and strategies for our games this weekend. The u10's and u13's have back to back home games tomorrow morning. I also played soccer at Proctor for 2 hours and tried some new potential drills. I totaled 7 hours today.

On Thursday, I had a practice day with my u10's and u13's. I spent 2 hours planning these practices. With specific drills that stressed the importance of playing simple, and spreading the field. I started with the u10's who I warmed up and got them right into a possession drill. We also did a finishing drill which was one by Emma! The u13's were next. With them, we worked on having wing players not allowed leaving the wing. This team has struggled using the entire field so we are really trying to work on that before Saturday's game. Both teams have big games on Saturday, both are home! I totaled 5 hours today.