Youth Soccer Opening Day Sees Solid Turnout

By MAGGIE MCMURRAY

Moapa Valley Progress

Fall brings the beginning of many things including cooler days and nights, falling leaves, and school. In Moapa Valley, however, fall also brings Clark County Parks and Rec’s most popular program: soccer.
“Soccer is our biggest program and it’s so exciting to see this much interest,” said program administrator, Lauralyn Robison. “We had a really great turnout for sign-ups and it should be a great season.”

Opening day for the program was Saturday, September 17. Heavy crowds made up of excited kids and their families came to the Moapa soccer fields and Perkins elementary.
“We have our opening and closing games on Saturdays but the rest of the season is played on Tuesday and Thursday evenings,” Robison said. “The only change this year will be that the middle school league will be playing every game on Saturdays”

Robison said numbers are actually up this year with a total of 365 kids between kindergarten and 8th grade registering for the season.
With that many kids they were able to make a total of 14 girls-only teams and 20 boys-only teams for the kindergarten-5th grade divisions, with 6 mixed gender teams in the 6th-8th grade division. Soccer games will run on a weekly basis until closing day, October 22.
“We are happy to see this program still going strong and that there is so much community interest,” said program director Elmer Lopez . “It is the first year in a long time we have been able to put together 6 teams in our middle school division.”

Kids were just excited to be playing again and spirits were high on both the winning and the losing teams. Most kids focused on the good things that happened during the games, tracking successes and improvements while having fun.
Trent Nelson, 6th grade, said of his first game, “It was fun and I’m glad we won.”
His mom Natalie agreed, “They do have fun and it keeps them active.”
Haley Bush, from Nelson’s competing team, also had a great time. “Soccer is my favorite sport even though we lost today,” she said.

“I really think the day went well,” Robison said. “The coaches have been great, the parents have been great, the refs have been great, and the kids are really playing well. It’s been an awesome start to what we hope is a wonderful season.”