Cat's Spring Celtic Season

It was a rough season for Cat.  First of all, she missed most of the winter trainings with her team because they were scheduled at the exact same time as her school basketball games.  We found out during the pre-season games in Vegas that Cat had lost her starting spot, and she didn't get as much playing time as usual because of her absences in the winter.

To add injury to injury, she got her concussion during the first regular-season game, and wasn't recovered for a few weeks.  And the way the schedule worked, the next game she was ready to play in wasn't for another week - over a month from the injury to the next game she played.  She played in the last 4 games of the season, then the post-season tournament.  She looked pretty good but wasn't as strong as she had been.  Her play time continued to diminish during the season, I'm guessing both because of the missed trainings in the winter and being off after needing to recover from the concussion.

Early in the season, right after the concussion, in fact, Cat decided she was ready to hang up her Celtic cleats.  We didn't tell anyone on the team just in case Cat changed her mind, but she didn't change her mind.

There are lots of reasons to stop playing club soccer, but one of the biggest is that she likes having the option to play as many school sports as she wants.  It will be nice to have flexibility to be more involved, or not, with school athletics.  There were two other girls on her team who made the same decision, for similar reasons.

The team did pretty well during the season (winning every game in which Cat played, thankyouverymuch) and making it into the semifinals of the post-season tournament, the State Cup.

It was hard for Cat to tell her coach and teammates that she wasn't coming back.  And it's an adjustment for her not to have "Celtic player" as part of her identity anymore, especially since she still really loves soccer, but I think it was a mature decision for her to make.  She's already involved in summer trainings with the high school soccer and basketball teams and enjoying that, and also enjoying having more money in her pocket since she no longer has to make a monthly soccer contribution.

And, below are some pics the mother of one of the players took during a joint birthday party for two girls on the team from December.  We're thankful for the friendships that we formed during the two years Cat played on this team!