2012 Carson High Soccer vs. Spanish Springs: The Dance

Four games today at Carson High vs. Spanish Springs… I was a tad late to the first game… late night and a lot to do this morning before I got there just before halftime…  I’ll get right into the photos… Varsity boys tied 0-0… a classic midfield battle… not a very exciting game for those that don’t particularly like soccer… but when you get two of the best teams in the North State on the same pitch… Varsity girls went to Carson 2-1 BUT… it was much like the boys, two top teams… a midfield duel for sure.

Normally I only use images from the Varsity games but I have a “theme” to my images tonight… I’m calling it “The Dance”… 🙂

You can dance solo, with the ball…

You can dance with a partner… but don’t forget the ball…You can dance with a partner AROUND the ball…You can grab your partner’s arm (not really quite legal but we’re dancing here…) and lead them round the field…

Or you can test if your partner can guess your next move… (this is one of my very favorite moments in soccer… you are so confident you can beat that guy, what move are you going to take out of your bag of tricks and leave him standing… soccer is all about change of direction and pace, this is a classic moment in the game, the better you are at THIS moment the better you are period.  Fun stuff!)

2012 Galena High Football vs. Carson…

Rough night for the Senators at Galena.  This is the second game of the Grizzlies I’ve seen, they come ready to play and pumped up!  Then, they play hard… tonight was no different, and it was Senior night as well.

I’ve got an early morning and long day tomorrow out at Carson High shooting soccer all day… So here are some photos from the game tonight!

This is one of my favorite for the season so far!I still can’t quite figure out what happened here, it was a normal pass play but the ending looked strange… bodies flying in strange directions… Carson was going from photo left to right at the time… see what I mean?  Kinda strange….Love getting these where you can see into the face mask, see the eyes…Galena had Carson’s number tonight… 42-0 was the final score.

2012 Carson High Girls Soccer… vs. Manogue

A fun game tonight!  This game was what great soccer can be… for the most part it was pretty clean, both teams moved the ball around well, they each had chances on goal, there were some exciting times, some dull times… and… there was a goal!  I know, most stick and ball sports people would call it boring… but I very much enjoyed watching tonight.  I thought both teams played quite well.  Thanks Ladies! 🙂

Here are some image from the night…

I think this is my favorite image from the night.  I was very impressed with the sweeper on the Manogue team.  Her “style” brought back some great memories.  She’s tough back there!I can always count on some wide open runs from this gal!  No product endorsement ball shot tonight!  Just her cleats… 🙂You have to love High School… same field… different night!I kept hoping she would take one down the left sideline and slot one in the goal!  Maybe next game!  Love this in the air shot!And last but not least, the Manogue center midfielder… she was a bit of a pest for the Carson defense tonight, she moves the ball well, fun to watch for sure.

2012 South Tahoe Pop Warner Pee Wee vs. Carson

I made the journey up to South Tahoe High School last night for the South Tahoe Pop Warner vs. Carson Pop Warner Pee Wee game… Under the lights at Tahoe’s new football stadium.  I haven’t shot there since they put the lights in… and I have to say, they did a great job with the lights!  The best that I shoot under for outdoor at night!  Glad “newer is better”!

Here are a few shots, check the rest out in the galleries for the leagues either at the side menu or under photo galleries.  Thanks for looking!

Tahoe’s offense is very hard to shoot… I’m not sure what the scheme is called, I called it the wedge… but it’s a lot of deception (me included…) and hard to see where the ball is sometimes… and it’s a lot of running plays.  Makes it tough to get many clear shots of the kids isolated.

Compare these images to the one’s from Douglas the night before… it’s DARK at Douglas… and black on black doesn’t help! 🙂

High School Soccer, Soccer, Volleyball, Football and Soccer coming up this week! A busy one with about 1/2 of the seasons in the record books!  See you out at the field or court!

2012 Douglas Fooball… vs. Damonte…

I only played football one season… I was the kicker my Junior year of high school (we were State champions!!)… I knew nothing about the game, wasn’t given a playbook, made a few tackles simply because I was the last guy there on a kickoff… being a soccer player for 14 straight years ending with three years at San Jose State… I will never quite understand American Football… and the ending of the game tonight’s game was so strange that I’ll let someone else try to explain it in technical terms… if they’re able…  (I’ll give you my explanation at the bottom of this post if you care to read… 🙂  )

Homecoming AND Senior night at Douglas tonight as it was their last regular season home game!  All my Senior Night images are in the Varsity gallery… the Homecoming images link is on the Douglas High Athletics page…

… but to kick off my images I’ll start with the Homecoming King and Queen!  I’ve been photographing Kyle for quite a few years now!  Congrats Kyle and Jordan!!I can always count on Kyle to have his great smile!  But for those of you that don’t know or haven’t seen Kyle in action in the pool… 🙂

OK, back to the game!

I just want to give a big shout out to Cale Kynett… Like Kyle above, I’ve been photographing Cale for quite a few years… tonight was his Varsity debut… and in this photographer’s opinion, he certainly earned himself some playing time!  Here’s one of his tackles tonight!  Welcome to Varsity Cale!

… and one last shot… this was Damonte’s last drive of the game… leading to the most bizarre finish I can remember….

Wild ending… OK… well… Damonte took over on downs around their 45 or so… a few plays later, the above image being the one that got them down to where all the crazy ending happened… they ended up with the ball inside the 5…. No timeouts left… with 2.9 seconds remaining the near side (Douglas side) umpire threw a penalty flag… I believe it was 4th and goal at this point, so score or it’s over… well the penalty was waived off… Damonte attempted to snap the ball and it was bobbled but the end zone umpire was in the process of blowing his whistle to hold the play… it was all rather chaotic… time expired as the play had started (the booth can’t tell what’s going on that clearly on the field…)… but the whistle had blown so they added the 2.9 seconds back… Damonte regrouped (changed plays even), snapped the ball and ran into the end zone… that tied it 46-46… Damonte kicked the extra and won the game.  I can’t even being to comment as it was all surreal watching it live… I asked Joey (from the Record-Courier) and he was just as baffled…  I’ll be anxious to watch if anything comes of it post game….

2012 Douglas High Volleyball… vs. Carson…

An exciting duel tonight at the Douglas High Gym… Douglas hosted Carson… even the Carson “athletic supporters” show up tonight to cheer on the team… certainly the loudest, most exciting volleyball game I’ve been to since I was in college!

I had to laugh… before the game they were playing a song that came out when I was a sophomore in high school… I asked one of the Carson girls if she had heard the song before… “… yes, it’s an oldie…”… 🙂  Not to date myself but not a sole playing tonight was even born when that song came out… NO, I won’t tell you the song… THAT would make me an oldie too! 😉

On to the photos!  The Carson “athletic supporters”… 🙂  The were quite animated tonight!  Even chanting “Jeff, take a picture!”… I had to oblige….

Still working on that “net” shot…, manual focus on this one… I’m pretty happy with this one!

I had a very good friend in college that played volleyball at San Jose State when I was on the soccer team… she was a left handed setter… (see where this is going…)… at one of her games I saw her get all ready to set the ball but instead she spiked it over the net left handed, scoring a point… I’d never seen that before so it really caused me to sit up and pay attention… I LOVE that threat!

… and the celebration!  I have to confess, I was waiting for this one… even the bench is celebrating!  Love it!  Hats off to both teams… there must be a winner, tonight it was Carson, but these teams gave the crowd and this photographer an exciting game to watch tonight!  Glad I was there to record parts of it!

Lessons learned… and executed…

If you saw the last blog post you should recognize this image…

This has been bugging me… 🙂

As we go anywhere in life we are told things that really stick in our heads… hopefully we learn and grow as time goes on, that’s what makes us better, right?  THIS photo is a perfect example for me.  I was told something very clearly when away at a photo conference lately that I think about just about every time I’m out shooting… so HERE is how what I was told is applied…  THIS is how this photo should be shown. 🙂

2012 Douglas High Soccer… vs. Carson…

Douglas hosted Carson today for Boys JV, Boys Varsity, Girls Varsity and Girls JV soccer… four straight games… check the photo galleries for all the action, including the JV! 🙂

This first shot… we haven’t gotten to the Carson Douglas football game yet (Thursday, October 25th, fittingly the day before Nevada Day!!) so I don’t have a “contact” shot from that matchup… so this will be my quintessential “rivalry” shot until then… 🙂  THIS to me shows the intensity of the your rivalry!  Fun stuff… and like basketball, soccer is a “non-contact” sport… 😉Literally seconds into the boys varsity game Douglas went up a goal… the ball bounced around in the Carson goal area until it was hammered into the back of the net… it all happened very fast… very fast… as in, what just happened as the ball bounced in the back of the net… I might be wrong, but I think this fella was the one who tried to rip the net off the back of the goal with that first shot!  THAT’S the kind of passion for this game I miss the most… well done!! (this is NOT his goal… just another shot later in the first half, I had the long tele lens in hand and quite frankly was no where near prepared to see a first 1/2 minute of play goal… that will teach me! 😉 )

Both the varsity games were very well attended, that was great to see… I commented after the boys game which ended 4-4, “… you can’t call that game “unexciting”…”!  A good show for all the fans…

This fella is always entertaining to photograph!  THIS is commitment to a move… for your information… a soccer ball is a fair amount smaller than a basketball… look at how far his knee is from the ground!  … and you have to love the muscle definition in the plant leg….

On to the girls game… … just a shot I liked… it’s kinda funny to me in a strange photo geek way… I was commenting the other day I was hoping they would be playing on the football field because there’s a “not very attractive” (… and of course I used those words… 😉 ) railcar type structure behind the Douglas bench… and here I go and choose a photo with that “not very attractive” structure in the background… You can see how the team tent is reflecting white light onto the upper portion so you can see the shape of the structure vs. the bottom where there is no reflection…. interesting in a photo geek kinda way I guess.

Here’s a now and then for you… and not to pick on Kiahna but… 🙂  This is her playing yesterday and the photo below is from two years ago… a little flashback for you from the photos I’ve posted over the years on the site.

Check out that posting here… you’ll see another familiar face on the Carson Girls team… 🙂