season

So our season comes to an end with marshalltown having to forfit all of their games because of cheating. the iowa central tritons come in second place with iowa western taking the lead in first. we played so well this year and im so happy with the results. we are going on to play scott county in the region tournament and niacc (northern iowa area) on the second day of the tournament. im excited for these next few games, they should be good. love you all. love jens

I love you mom and dad!!! i just read your post and cryed!!!! haha how manly is that? well i just wanted to drop in and tell you that. hope you had a happy aniversery!!! thanks so much for the amazing videos. keep em comin. oh yeah next time could you get more of casey and his partners, as well as matt and kim in latin.
love and miss you toonnnnnssss!!!!
love your little man jens.

Team News - I'm in it.

http://www.iowacentral.edu/athletics/mens_soccer/news/2009/8-21-09.asp

Tritons take question marks, confidence into 2009
by Josh Sandin
Photo Courtesy of Paul DeCoursey
Posted on 8/21/2009

FORT DODGE – There’s a certain excitement in the voice of Iowa Central head men’s soccer coach, Brandon Ermels, when he talks about the upcoming season. For a coach with only five sophomores on his roster, this would not be the reaction you would expect. However, Ermels has pretty high hopes for the 2009 season.

“We have a lot of freshmen, only three of our returners were starters last season,” said Ermels. “That said; we still have very high aspirations for this club. We think we should compete for the top spot in the conference.”

Returning for the Tritons this season are Kyle Roach, who was named preseason captain, Max Peterson, Alex Van De Laarschott and Guillermo Carillo. That number will mix with one of the more talented freshman classes Iowa Central has had.

“Our roster is very deep and talented,” said Ermels. “We have a lot of guys coming in with (Olympic Development Program) experience and even more with very strong club backgrounds.”

Ermels and the Tritons are quite aware that talent can look great on paper, but games are won and lost on the pitch. With 22 freshmen earning a varsity spot, experience will be something that will have to be earned on the fly.

“Our sophomores our going to have a huge leadership role,” said Ermels. “They are familiar with the conference and the level of play we need to be at every day. They know our high program standards and have set the bar high.”

Defense
The Triton defense will be the main question mark for the Triton in 2009. With only one defensive returner this season, Kyle Roach, and two rookie goalkeepers, Ermels is putting a lot of stock into his freshmen.

Ermels expects to see freshmen Jensen Smith, Tommy Catania and Morgan LeBeurre to head the defense for the Tritons. The freshman trio all come from very different backgrounds a Smith, the only American in the bunch, hails from Provo, Utah, Catania is from East London and LeBeurre hails from France. Smith and LeBeurre will be on the outside while Catania will play in the middle or center back with Roach.

i went to the fair with my host family back in des moines. i was so excited to go to the iowa state fair. it was soo cool to see all the mullets and digusting tattoos and all that crap but hey, thats iowa. haha well i really happy that i get to go to church today and not have to do a stupid fitness test that we would have had to have done on saturday and sunday. instead we got it done on friday. it was pretty easy compared to what i thought it was going to be. i had heard that it was going to be either a backwards mile, lunges up a parking garage, or something else. it turned out to be the backwards mile. it was really hard. i thought it was going to be pretty easy but ha nope. well im off to get my sunday close on and go to churk. (thats what the little kids call it.)

this is a video of last night when all the power went out for a few minutes. its really cool to see all the lightning. its not very long cause my camara battery died.

i have now offically moved into my dorm. it is so weird!!! its kind of bitter sweet cause i miss my parents and family but at the same time its cool to be on my own. we just finished one practice for today and at four we have another practice. yesterday we kind of started it off with just a little game of 8v8 and every one switched and played each other. i was kickin some serious bootay! it was awesome. im excited to play in a game on sunday. well thats all for now. i miss you all.
love jensie poo

well today is the big day where i leave my host family and go out into the world with my soccer buddies and hope for the best. i will miss the hancocks very much and can't wait to come back for the state fair. im kind of scared and also very very excited to go it on my own. i will definety be confiding in my parents for support and also financil advice. i love you so much mom and dad. haha ok well i will be going now. i leave around 6ish. i love every one.
love Jens

so yesterday i was playing in an indoor game and it was this team with lots of mexican guys and there was this guy in an orange shirt with a stash and a gotee and i had him against the wall and i had heeled it back around him and he wips around and had his hands at eye level and i think he purposely punched me right in the right eye and gave me a BLACK EYE!!!! wahooooo my first black eye!!! its not really that bad but you can tell if i were to close my eye and its a little brused but its pretty sweet. haha well im really excited to go to college and hang with my utah buddies. also im excited to go to the iowa state fair! oh and today i went to the pool and basically worked on my tan, and caught some zzzz's with tysa. it was so good!! ha well love you all so much! see ya love, Jensen Smith.

Turtles

well sorry i haven't been on here in a while. their computer was being really weird for a few days. there hasn't really been much going on. i leave to go to college in a few weeks. its kind of weird knowing im not going to see my family or friends for a few months. oh well. :) so the weather has been really weird. its been cloudy but really really hot. and then it would be sunny and really really hot. haha thats not the weird part but...whatever. ok well thats pretty much it. today we were supposed to have practice but nobody was there so i went to the soccer house and played in a few games. sean was getting in fights left and right and i had to back him up so i punched a few people.....NOT! but it was good. we kick butt. it was like nine to two. well thats pretty much it. see ya.

oh and mom i forgot the thing that connect my camera to the computer so if it doesn't cost that much could you send it out here.

well final score of the Iowa Central vs. the Menace is..... menace, 6 or 7 i don't remember, IC 0 haha we got spanked!!!

Press Release from Jens's College and PDL coach

I received Jensen's name from a coach in the area and from the moment I began having correspondence with Jens and his family I knew this kid had a bright future ahead of him. I quickly made arrangements to fly out to Utah to see Jens play and I was very impressed. After one match I was able to tell that Jens was going to make the transition from High School to College soccer very smoothly. He is a tenacious, hard-nosed tackler and plays physical soccer that many High School kids shy away from. Too often college freshman become overwhelmed with the level of physicality in the college game. It is clear that Jens is ready for the challenge.

It's not uncommon to find defenders with grit, but what impresses me the most about Jens perhaps is his ability to serve in dangerous balls and spring his attackers. I watched Jens send about 4 different free kicks into the area each one more and more dangerous. That kind of playmaking is a rare quality in most high school defenders and one that will serve the Iowa Central Soccer Program well this fall. Jens will be joined by Utah Valley standouts Sean Miller and Tyler Wood, as well as Bingham captain Jared DeHart and Layton defender Taylor Hancey. I expect this influx of Utah talent to make our bid for the National Tournament all the more attainable and I am excited for things to come.
Coach Ermals

Well, monday was amandas birthday and it was really fun. First we went to the pool and hung out there. After we were done we came home to examine every ones sunburns. Everyone got one but alivia got the worst of it. Some one had forgotten to put sunscreen on her back and now its like a lobster! It is pretty bad. We did that and then Levi got home and took every one exept Amanda birthday shopping and boy did we find stuff. Haha we started looking around and Elija starts saying: can we get mommy a transformer? And Levi was like no i dont think mommy will like that. When we were all done we got home and Levi pulls out these cards that have sound and one of them was a green weiner card and one was a donkey. The weiner card went something like this....(as you open it) WEINER, WEINER WEINER. The front of the card said: birthdays are like weiners and on the inside it said: ok well not really, i just wanted to call you a weiner. hahahahaha it was the best card ever!!!! I laughed sooo hard. The donkey one goes like this: "you? Turning a year older? and on the inside it says: well that makes my ass laugh and showes a picture of a donkey with its lips open and it is making donkey noise. i didn't think that was really funny, just annoying. We put the cards away and got ready to go to olive garden. When we got there we met Amandas mom and sat down. i got the fetichinni alfredo. When we finished eating levi and amanda set up this movie for the big people to watch and it turns out that Amandas mom didn't want to go to the movie. the movie was "The Proposal." it was one of the best movies ive ever seen. Yesterday was really not that exciting. i went to practice with the menice at the soccerhouse and got blood blisters on my feet from playin indoor. Today is the big game with my semi pro team and my college team. im going to be playing for my college team and i think we are going to get our butts handed to us by the menice. well thats all for now. love you all.

Yesterday was fathers day and am so sad that i wasn't able to spend it with my dad. i want to wish him a happy fathers day and tell him i love him. Love ya dad. Yesterday was so much fun. First we sat down to have a nice big breakfast with eggs and bacon, sausege, and hash browns and cheese on top. After that we got dressed and went to church. i had a choice of after sacrament meeting, going to the nusery with amanda and some of the kids, or going to the gospel doctrine class with levi and let me tell you it was such a hard decision...not i went to the gospel doctrine class with levi. as soon as we got done with those classes we left to make it on time to go to levi's parents house to visit them. After we got done there we left for Amandas parents. First we were going to tell them that i was just another foster child that they were going to adopt but then we had decided that that was pretty mean so we didn't. Both of their parents were really really nice. We went into the back yard of Amandas parents and sat and watched as the brotwarsts roasted and the hambergers cooked and finally they were ready. The brotwarsts were sooooo good! They had cheese in them just like the hotdogs that i used to eat all the time. With that cheese i had decided that baked beans would go good with them so i put beans on my dog and walked to go sit down. As i passed levi he noticed and was like...: why didn't i think of that. I just laughed. After every one was done eating we went out side and played soccer. i kicked butt but my team lost. hahaha well thats all for now im just about to leave for my school to practice with them to play the team that i just played for. Peace out.

Well...so far its been really fun. I have now offically played on my first semi pro team. It was only for about ten mins but those ten mins felt like i had proven myself to that coach. I am loving this new family so much. Tysa, is one year old. she is so cute! I love holding her and love that she is into me. haha Alivia, is just a big ball of fun. We have decided that she is going to be....excuse me, she already is a drama queen of the family. She also said that she loves me, haha so cute. Elija-is so fun. even though he is "sick" he doesn't show it at all. he has to take lots of medicine but other than that its been really fun. he has had to take some steroids to help make his body stronger to fight off the sickness and has been pretty moody lately but its just the medicine. Michelle is soon to be 12. Her birthday is coming up pretty soon and she is so excited for it. She is such a good helper around the house and am surprised by how mature she is for her age.

Well I'm in Iowa as of 5:30 Friday evening. The plane ride was fun. I sat by the window on my first flight since I was like 2 yrs old.
I'm relaxing tonight and then start right in playing a game tomorrow (Saturday 20th).

I'll add more soon!