Men with Balls - The Coach's Answer -

The article I posted this morning about our game last night got my coach, David Fritsch, all fired up. I am just exaggerating a bit but a good controversy should spike the traffic on my Blog: "Did you hear that Lambert and Fritsch went nose to nose after last night soccer game?". Of course I am just kidding, all we have is a mutual respect for each other and we are good friends - but we both hate to lose even if we played better yesterday than a week ago.

Dave loves his men, his team...so he asked me to post this reply:

"James,

Please speak kindly of us this week, I think the team played 100% better this week. Garza was an animal; Carse is on the verge of breaking out on scoring goals, he had several good chances last night; great leadership and coaching by the Mikes; Simon played well for a man with a strained crotch; Randy and Imran continue to play better each week, even through injuries; For the Glory of France WILL score this week.

One thing to talk smack about: Bryce fell asleep watching the Steelers game at home last night and missed the game, waking up at 230 in the morning.

Favazza has swine flu, so that is why he did not play last night. He had let Bryce know, but since he slept through the game, he could not provide the update.

Big game this week as we play for the Pride of our Kids, as many of the families are making plans to come watch.

Overall, I am having a blast! Other than feeling like I was run over by a truck last night, I am already looking forward to next week. Thank you for your help with the team.

David Fritsch"

Dave, your reply is hilarious. It looks like we will all be ready to play next week for our third game. In the meantime, let's heal our wounds and let's not forget to stretch to prevent injuries!

Looking forward to start a Coach's Corner on the Blog every monday.
God Bless you Dave, you are a good Man!

Men with Balls - Ste.Gen. Men vs Big River Running Store

Game time was last night at 10.20 p.m. Our opponents were a bunch a strong runners from the Big River Running Store Company. With our regular Keeper Roderick on his way back from Atlanta and unable to attend, Garza decided to take over the tough duty of Goal Keeper.

Once again, the pace of the game was intense from the get-go. After our crushing loss last week on Opening Night, our team was very motivated.

Big River 1 - Ste. Gen. Men 0

Big River is pressing on offense and Garza is already doing an outstanding job with some amazing saves. I can't believe none of our opponents are sweating! Our side is struggling with cardio. Niederer who dominated the 5K Trot Thru the Woods with a 18Th place is still sore from Saturday's effort. Zoberi hurts his hamstring before the half. Lambert and Simon start to argue on the field about strategy.
The Ste. Gen. Men are getting frustrated and it shows.

Big River 2 - Ste. Gen. Men 0

But then Carse, Zarrili and Andrews start to push the tempo. Great ball movement in midfield. Fritsch is controlling our defense. We are taking over the game. But we miss great opportunities to score. Not once but several times. One on one with their keeper but we can't get one in. And, right before half-time, Big River sneaks one more in.

Big River 3 - Ste. Gen. Men 0

The second half shows both teams' limits. Ours is definitely the conditioning. We are gazed. Big River is getting sloppy as well and with a great Garza on our side, they wouldn't score but only one more time.

Big River 4 - Ste. Gen. Men 0

As time is expiring and with 5 seconds on the clock, Simon finds himself alone with the ball, 12 feet from their Keeper, but shoots wide right as the whole place is cheering for us. Maybe we should change the name of our Team to the......

Midnight already... time to go home and get some Tylenol and Ice Pack!

Trot Thru The Woods 2009 - The 5K Results

Here is the link to the Trot site: Trot Thru the Woods 2009

Andrew Person - Winner of the Men's 1st Annual Trot Thru the Woods


Men
1 Andrew Person St.Louis 17:01
2 John Jackson St.Louis 18:57
3 Tom Eckel Milford,OH 19:08
4 Sam Berg St.Louis 19:40
5 Joe Buffa St.Louis 20:54
6 Kevin Jackson St.Louis 21:00
7 Tom Berg St.Louis 21:23
8 Dave Farmer St.Louis 21:30
9 Roger Bautista St.Louis 21:45
10 Mark Stolzer Fenton 22:13
11 Tim Dolan St.Louis 22:15
12 Jeff Adams St.Louis 22:39
13 Kyle Vasel Greenville, IL 22:51
14 Jimmy Mack St.Louis 23:02
15 Michael Normile St.Louis 23:49
16 Randy Koning St.Louis 23:53
17 Chad Wrinkle St.Louis 24,00
18 Randy Niederer St.Louis 24,01
19 Tom Dell'Orco St.Louis 24,23
20 Richard Sporn St.Louis 24,25
21 Jim Malik St.Louis 24.46
22 Mark Hannah St.Louis 24.52
23 Kirt Ormesher Waterloo, IL 25.16
24 Micheal Zarrili St.Louis 25.45
25 Kevin Foy St.Louis 26.07
26 Bob Cerame Chesterfield 26.14
27 Michael Donelly St.Louis 26.33
28 Danny Barry St.Louis 26.54
29 George R. Zimny Columbia, MO 27.09
30 John Halliday St.Louis 27.14
31 Keith Mote St.Louis 27.36
32 Chris Reed St.Louis 28.01
33 Brian Bergman St.Louis 28.17
34 Bob Heaney St.Louis 28.20
35 Cameron Zimny Dallas , TX 29.34
36 Tim Sauer St.Louis 30.18
37 Jeremiah SodomkaSt.Louis 30.19
38 Ron Woodruff McKinney, TX 30.29
39 Gary Zimny Dallas , TX 30.40
40 Michael Adrio St.Louis 30.48
41 Alex Garza St.Louis 31.36
42 John Mozeliek St.Louis 33.18
43 Will Mozeliek St.Louis 33.39
44 Mike Dell'Orco St.Louis 33.56
45 John Garza St.Louis 34.51
46 Jerry Cole St.Louis 35.48
47 Paul Lottes St.Louis 37.18
48 Jim Lager St.Louis 37.23
49 Paul Bussman St.Louis 39.46
50 Mark Brennan St.Louis 41.16
51 David Fritsch St.Louis 41.57
52 John Lord St.Louis 42.06
53 Brian Hansen St.Louis 42.19
54 Tony Behr St.Louis 49.09

Laura Kennedy - Winner of the Women's 1st Annual Trot Thru the Woods

Women
1 Laura Kennedy Charlestown, MA 17:41
2 Dani Dell'Orco St.Louis 22:25
3 Kelly Dolan St.Louis 23:26
4 Tina Dell'Orco St.Louis 24,21
5 Katie Miller St.Louis 24,30
6 Katie Behr St.Louis 25,02
7 Havens Collins Ballwin 25,17
8 Kerry Donelly St.Louis 26.34
9 Kate Milner St.Louis 26.46
10 Susie Niederer St.Louis 27.04
11 Lexie Linblad St.Louis 27.05
12 Alissa Czyz Ballwin 27.07
13 Annie Mullenix St.Louis 27.10
14 Leslie Halliday St.Louis 27.12
15 Erica Mote St.Louis 27.35
16 Lana Fitzgerald St.Louis 27.39
17 Katherine Lager St.Louis 27.57
18 Sidney Carr St.Louis 27.59
19 Jacquie Lager St.Louis 28.05
20 Maureen Shreppe St.Louis 28.09
21 Haley Bergman St.Louis 28.16
22 Stephanie Lasley Columbia, MO 28.18
23 Ann Marie Barry St.Louis 29.26
24 Mary Grace Barry St.Louis 29.39
25 Laura Wassilak St.Louis 30.11
26 Missy Lewis St.Louis 30.16
27 Elizabeth Collins St.Louis 30.19
28 Alison Miller St.Louis 30.31
29 Berkeley Adrio St.Louis 30.48
30 Ally Mozeliek St.Louis 33.09
31 Emile Garza St.Louis 33.18
32 Julie Mozeliek St.Louis 33.38
33 Lindsay Berge Ballwin 33.54
34 Kelly Waller St.Louis 34.02
35 Tracy Bautista St.Louis 34.05
36 Donna Garza St.Louis 34.51
37 Anna Moylan St.Charles 35.44
38 Deanna Moylan St.Louis 35.47
39 Heather Reissner Waterloo, IL 35.49
40 Angela Kloepel Waterloo, IL 35.49
41 Kathy Chitty Waterloo, IL 35.49
42 Erin Sullivan St.Louis 36.29
43 Michele Koerner St.Louis 37.01
44 Emma Lager St.Louis 37.23
45 Judy Zimny Dallas, TX 38.16
46 Susanne Blackwell Omaha, NE 39.46
47 Amanda Sodomka St.Louis 41.58
48 Alexandra Sodomka St.Louis 42.05
49 Caitlin Hansen St.Louis 42.18
50 Nicole Hansen St.Louis 42.19
51 Liz Hansen St.Louis 42.19
52 Peg Lord St.Louis 42.42
53 Anna Simonson St.Louis 42.55
54 Ava Bussman St.Louis 47.51
55 Shari Bussman St.Louis 47.52
56 Susan Heaney St.Louis 48.49
57 Patricia Flood St.Louis 49.24
58 Emily Kindsfather Blue Spring,MO49.44
59 Courtney Kindsfather Rolla, MO 49.44
60 Amy Nash Blue Spring, MO 49.44
61 Claire Lord St.Louis 49.44
62 Anne Lord St.Louis 49.44

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I want to thank you all for supporting the Blog.

This is my favourite time of the year when family from far comes to town for a one time special Week-End.

Let's all pray for the ones not as fortunate as we are..

The ones with no shelter... click the picture to enlarge...

The ones with challenges like the amazing Cody... you are a true inspiration Cody!





The ones who won't have the chance to be among families today...



The ones we would love to have around but left us too soon...


This is the funeral of Private Kevin Elliott who was killed during a battle with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The ceremony was held in Dundee, Scotland. His best friend Barry Delaney wore a green dress to honor a long time agreement that if one of them dies, the other has to wear a bright green dress to the funeral.
Barry said:

“Kev was like my brother – we would have done anything for each other.
We said that whoever died first, the other one had to wear a pink dress with green spots to the funeral – and we shook on it. It was mainly his idea and the more I think about it, I’m sure Kevin knew something was going to happen.
I looked for the exact dress but couldn’t find one anywhere.
I eventually picked up the green one in Primark and bought the pink pop socks to make it look even sillier. It’s what Kev would have wanted.
Kev told his whole family about the pact, so I couldn’t back out. I had a word with him at the graveside and asked if he liked the color – I’m sure I could hear laughter coming out of the ground.
Kev was a true hero and someone I’m proud to call my best mate.”



God Bless you All!!

Mom, why did you throw my drawing in the trash?

click on picture to enlarge

Every day my adorable children bring home tons of Daycare Projects. How lucky they are that their teachers spend lots of time trying to stimulate their creativity.

But then, as the years go by, one can't possibly keep each and every single piece of art our lovely kids produce.

So what is your strategy? How do you decide which ones to keep and which ones to throw in the recycling bin? There is nothing more heartbreaking than your son finding one of his drawings in the trash and coming to you with a sad look on his face, holding his soiled creation, and sobbing: "Mom, why did you throw my drawing away?"

Touche!

As a rule, I get rid of all the ones made out of food -aka M&Ms, Cereal, Marshmallows etc... I discard the ones with no name on it - usually my kids write their names in the back of each drawing. If I can't figure out if my son or my daughter is the author of the piece, it is an automatic "out".

How about you? And for those who have older kids, do you still have a box of their artworks from back in the days?

Men with Balls - The full schedule

For those who want to come and cheer for the Ste. Gen. Men on Sundays, here is our full schedule:

Sun 11/29 10:20 PM 50 minutes Big River Running Company Soccerdome, Field One
Sun 12/6 2:50 PM 50 minutes at SBABA Soccerdome, Field One
Sun 12/13 5:20 PM 50 minutes at Spotless Soccerdome, Field One
Sun 12/20 7:00 PM 50 minutes Bosna F.C. (Yellow Shirts) Soccerdome, Field One
Sun 1/3 2:50 PM 50 minutes Steve Wiebe All-Stars Soccerdome, Field One
Sun 1/10 2:00 PM 50 minutes at The Has Been's (Black Shirts) Soccerdome, Field One

W.W Swim Club: The Pool Board/Members Meeting

It was last night at City Hall... Highlights:

- End of the year 2010 balance: our bank account is in the green. Combination of having an influx of new members, smart spending and most importantly no flooding at the pool.

- Membership: is up! Over 20+ new families joined last season and we barely lost a family or 2. Let's keep it up.

- Baby Pool: One of the main projects is to redo/upgrade the Baby Pool. So far the bids we have are very high. It is a work in progress. No decision has been made yet.

- Member's Comments: Jim Lewis thanked the Board for all the work that has been done last season. Thank you Jim for thanking us. You did your share of work on the Pool Board back in the days and we simply try to follow your tracks of excellence.
Jim brought also an important point: do we want to keep our local Life Guards under Pro Pool Management supervision or simply have the Pool being run by a team of complete strangers? We need the Lifeguards to be more accountable and they need to keep themselves busy. One idea is to have a sign posted at the Pool - with Pro Pool phone number on it, for Members to call and report anything that they would dislike.


- Election of New 2010 Board Members: We welcome 2 new Board Members - Elizabeth Locke and Darryl Austin. Thank you for contributing.

- Election of 2010 Officers:
President: Dede Nigh
Membership: Katie Martin
Facility: Anthony Hasek / Chuck Abegg
Treasurer: Sean Fitzgerald
Social: Julie & James Lambert
Secretary: Mike O'Shea

- Anthony Hasek: As you see, Anthony Hasek is passing the torch to Dede Nigh as President of the Pool Board. Anthony will remain on the Board. Now I must give Mr.Hasek his Props here. This guy is phenomenal. Speaking of volunteering.... Anthony has been putting more hours of his life on his own personal/family time for the past 2 years to insure the well being of our Pool than you can imagine. We have been so fortunate to have someone like him running the show, who CARES so much about our community. I know we are in good hands with Dede Nigh at the wheels now and I am glad Anthony is still in the picture for the upcoming season. Kudos to you Anthony and feel free to keep feeding me with some beautiful pictures to refresh our W.W Swim Club Web-Site for the upcoming 2010 season!

Young Gunz vs the Ste. Gen. Men

For those who are not following my Blog on regular basis, let me bring you up to speed. A bunch of Mavericks from WW. have decided to put together an Indoor Soccer Team. The first game of the season was last night.

As we show up 10 minutes prior to the game at the Indoor Arena, we are all pumped up. Randy is handing us our Team Jersey. A couple of our guys are still hangover from Saturday night. Garza is sitting in his corner with his headphone listening to some heavy metal music.

Fritsch is talking strategy.

We are looking for our opponents. So we ask some kids in the stand if they have heard about the Young Gunz - pause - they are the Young Gunz!!! A bunch of 20+ year old college kids... It feels like someone just punched us in the stomach. Are we in the right League? Apparently we are in an Open League not a 30 year old+ casual one.

John Simon is already talking Post Game Activities.

The Young Gunz are looking at us like we are some kind of an easy prey. Only one of them is stretching before the game. No trash talking, simply a look that says we know we are going to eat you alive.

We can't back down, so we too decided to put our Game Faces on.

Our roster is the following: Fritsch -our Skipper, Garza, Simon, Carse, Lambert, Zarrili, Zoberi, Andrews ,Niederer and Roderick as our keeper....

The game is fast paced. Since we have 6 men on the field and 4 subs, we take 2 minute shift to try to stay fresh. Garza is looking to open a door somewhere to breathe some fresh air. Out of luck!

Young Gunz 1 - Ste. Gen. Men 0

We play two 25 minute Period. The first ten minute, the Ste. Gen. Men look pretty disorganized since we had only 1 practice that only half of the team attended.

Young Gunz 2 - Ste. Gen. Men 0

These Young Gunz can move the ball. We are in a hole.

Young Gunz 3 - Ste. Gen. Men 0

When our guys step aside to take a break, it feels like we play in high altitude. We can barely talk. We try to smile but even smiling is hard.

Young Gunz 4 - Ste. Gen. Men 0

Half-Time.

I must give tons of credit to Roderick. Without him as our keeper, the score would have been 25 - 0. He is unbelievable.

We try to regroup and cheer ourselves up with some silly thoughts like... hum...

We are playing much better during the second half. I don't know if the Young Gunz are getting tired as well or they have simply decided to stop trying to hard. Although they keep scoring.

Young Gunz 5 - Ste. Gen. Men 0

Now we want to score as well. Our heart and cheers are setting a new Tempo. Andrews, Zarreli and Fritsch are directing us, pushing for a Man to Man coverage. Simon is screaming at me when I touch the ball "go ahead James, for the Glory of France!". And it happened. After a scramble in midfield, Zarreli goes off on the right side of the field and sent a long pass to yours truly who managed to tip the ball into the net!

Young Gunz 5 - Ste. Gen. Men 1

Yes, they scored another one.

Young Gunz 6 - Ste. Gen. Men 1

But we fought hard. Niederer and Zoberi got hurt a bit but were terrific. I am not sure who we will play next week. As I was walking out the field, the Ref. told me, we - meaning the Young Gunz and us - were the Worst teams of the Division. Not a good sign.

Ouch.

Trot Thru the Woods - The 5K Race

Here is the layout - It is a 3 mile loop (Map my Run shows 3.12 mile but it is only 3 mile).

Start at Rohan Wooods School then:
South on Bennett, Left on Renderer, Right on Warson Woods Dr., Right on Forest View, Left on Dunwoody, Left on Ridgeline, Left on North, Left on Andrew, Right on Warson Woods Dr., Right on Renderer, Right on Bennett, Left on Havenwhood, Right on Bennett, Right on Rolfe, Rolfe turns into Garland, Right on Renderer, Right on Edlin, End at Rohan Woods School.

Men with Balls - Update

The Ste.Gen. Men Indoor Soccer Team will make its season debut this coming Sunday at the Vetta Soccer dome.

The Game is at 7.50 pm - against the Young Gunz -

We have a very exciting roster with the late addition of Mike Andrews. The first and only practice we had last Sunday revealed some excited talents on the team including Randy Niederer showing some great defensive skills and Pat Carse with some sweet moves and solid "Trash Talking". I foresee our Brazilian look alike John Garza tearing up defenses. All these talents will be under our Skipper David Fritsch's supervision.

I will keep you updated on our progress.

Go Ste.Gen.Men!!!

The 31st Annual Warson Woods Ornament Exchange

Save the Date!!!
The 31st Annual Warson Woods Ornament Exchange
Monday, December 7th at 7 pm
735 Havenwood Circle Drive*
Hosted by:
Mary Sullivan*, Ellie Cribbin, Joan Thompson

Please bring an UNWRAPPED Christmas Ornament to exchange
and
Invite any new Neighbors on Your Street

Questions: Please Call Mary Sullivan at 965-9478

ALSO:
It's time for a new trio of Hostesses to take the reins! Julie Lambert has graciously offered to host the 2010 gathering! Looking for 2 additional hostesses to partner with her and host in 2011 and 2012!! Please reply to stlbakers@aol.com if interested!!!

Trot Thru the Woods Update

Sorry for the lack of activity but organizing the Trot is time consuming and doesn't give me much time to know what is going on in the Hood right now.

Great news, we just past the century mark and with 2 weeks to go, I am proud to say 106 runners have already signed up!! Thank you so much for your support.

It is going to be an incredible morning you don't want to miss.

I still need a few volunteers to help direct traffic and to hand water to the runners. Let me know if you are available!

If you don't feel like running, make sure to come and cheer for the participants. We still need you on saturday the 28th!