Content:
1) What is your essential question and your answers? What is your best answer and why?
My essential question is How can a girls soccer team best maximize their chances in winning CIF? My first answer is a girls soccer team can maximize their chances in winning CIF by utilizing a soccer formation that works best for your team. My second answer is reducing the risk of injury by performing balance, power and agility drills during training our team maximizes our chance to win CIF. My third answer is a soccer players should be on a high carbohydrate and low in fats diet to maximize their chances in winning. My best answer is my second answer, reducing the risk of injury by performing balance, power and agility drills during training our team maximizes our chance to win CIF. The reason I chose this as my best answer is because while doing mentorship with my mentor Coach Ana Mendez at Southlands Christian High School these drills are what we performed for 15 minutes at the start of practice. Injury is what affected the Southlands Girls soccer team at the first round of CIF. The other reason I chose this as my best answer is because girls are more prone to injury than male soccer players due to anatomical differences and hormone levels. I have found this answer by my research checks of Kirkendall, Donald T. author of Complete Guide to Soccer Fitness and Injury Prevention: A Handbook for Players, Parents, and Coaches.
2)What process did you take to arrive to this answer?
The process I took to arrive to this answer is going everyday to mentorship at Southlands with Coach Ana Mendez and Marissa Tipton. My mentors would always mention it and apply them as drills so I figured I should research more on reducing the risk of injury. Since I was researching this topic I was finding an abundant of articles because it is a well known section in soccer. The more I research the more I was knowing why Coach Ana Mendez had these drills in her soccer practices. I was starting to take these drills more seriously because they could injury can keep you from playing for a few months or at all.
3)What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?
Some problems I faced was finding the right mentor in the beginning of the year like September. The reason I had a problem was that Jaime Fuentes, coach of the Spain team, didn't really have knowledge or a license for coaching. He was coaching the team by his past experience of him playing. The way I solved this was hy joining the Southlands girls soccer team with Coach Ana Mendez and Marissa Tipton. On top of that being one solution it was 2 solutions because at the beginning of the year, around September,I wanted my topic to focus on a league in Pomona I joined with Spain called Pomona United and how a soccer team can win the league championship. At the time of my foundation presentation the league was folding and was splitting to make 2 different ones. There was no history or facts I could get from anyone. There was no more league. Southlands Christian High School became my permanent mentorship. The last problem was finding a ESA for my first answer,a girls soccer team can maximize their chances in winning CIF by utilizing a soccer formation that works best for your team because there was no studies done that I researched. There is no way in telling if a soccer formation statistically works. The way I solved this as by Mrs. Pittman recommended me to make my own study by comparing same position players from a league . The question I had to keep in mind was what makes that player help win a game? The position I researched was forwards. I had to get stats such as how many goals they scored, games started and games that they were subbed in from games they played from 2013-2014 in the Barclay's Premier League. It gave me a better understanding of what percentage a forward should have to win a game.
4)What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?
The two most important sources I used was Kirkendall, Donald T., and William E. Garrett. The Complete Guide to Soccer Fitness & Injury Prevention: A Handbook for Players, Parents, and Coaches. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2007. Print. The reason why is because it gave me all I needed in one book. From nutrition, injury prevention, warming up and everything soccer player needs to know.
The other source being Nutrition For Athletes By Jennifer E. L. Anderson. It is my favorite source because it breaks everything down from what and athlete should eat. It was also easy to understand from the reading and apply it. I learned a lot of what to eat and not to eat from this source and kind of food to eat for a soccer player to have energy.
