Spring 2024 Practice Schedule - NASA Tophat Junior Academy Girls

We start practice for the spring 2024 season the week of February 5. We have the same practice days / times / fields as in the fall. (Yes!)

Practices continue through the week of May 13th. We may make adjustments for schools’ Winter Break (later February) and Spring Break (early April). We’ll poll our members as we get closer to those events and adjust if necessary.

Day	Location	Field	Time
Mondays	United Quest Park	UQP field 7	5:30 - 6:45 PM
Tuesdays	Metro North Park	MNP "Tops" field	4:45 - 6:00 PM 6:10 - 6:45 PM optional goalkeeper training (begins March 12)
Wednesdays	United Quest Park	UQP field 7	5:30 - 6:45 PM 6:55 - 7:30 PM optional goalkeeper training (begins February 14)
Thursdays	Metro North Park	MNP "Tops" field	4:45 - 6:00 PM 6:10 - 6:45 PM optional goalkeeper training (begins March 14)

Pre-season checklist:

Before we get started, please take 5-10 minutes with your daughter to review our practice session guidelines: what to wear (and what not to wear, for example, earrings and jewelry), what to bring, and so forth.
Please check your daughter’s warm-up gear to make sure her initials and uniform number are marked (and still legible) on internal tags / labels. Warm-up tops and pants are easily misplaced, but if labeled, they usually find their way back to the owner pretty quickly. Please also make sure her backpack, water bottle and ball have legible IDs.

Which / how many practices to attend?

We ask the girls to attend two sessions each week. For most players, these will be the two sessions at their home park. If a player has a schedule conflict with a session at her home park, she’s welcome to attend a session at the other park, no reservation needed. (We’ll make sure she feels welcome!) If a player wants to attend extra practices, she’s welcome to do so.

Arrival time / early-bird scrimmage:

Girls are welcome to arrive early! We typically have the field setup 15-20 minutes ahead of time, and we often have an informal “early bird” scrimmage or competition before our official practice start time.

Bad weather procedures:

Waterlogged fields, lightning or unsafe driving conditions due to winter storms can cause problems. We generally practice in cold weather as long as the wind chill doesn’t drop below 25 degrees. (Link: tips on cold weather attire). We often practice in the rain when temperatures are in the mid-50s or higher.

We use our Junior Academy Girls web site’s News section to post any late-breaking weather-related schedule changes. If weather is iffy, our goal is to post an update about practice plans by 4 PM. We usually only post about exceptions to our standard schedule. So if there’s no update, it means practice as usual. For more info about how we deal with bad weather, please check our weather link.

PlayMetrics cancellation notices — confirm via our Junior Academy Girls web site’s News page:

The NASA Tophat PlayMetrics system automatically e-mails practice cancellation notices when fields are closed. If you receive a PlayMetrics cancellation notice, don’t just assume practice is canceled! Instead, check our Junior Academy Girls web site’s News page to see if we arranged a practice Plan B.

In some cases, we are able to arrange other practice space. But PlayMetrics doesn’t offer a quick way to notify families of the practice change, so you won’t know about backup plans unless you check our Junior Academy web site’s News page: https://www.nasaacademygirls.org/schedules/spring-2024-practice/#bad-weather. (Our web site only applies to the Tophat Marietta Junior Academy Girls group, not to other rec, Academy or Select teams.)

United Quest Park practice field:

Our usual practice field is Quest Park field 7, which is natural grass. When UQP field 7 is closed (not uncommon during wet weather), we usually try to reserve the “puddle jumper court” instead of canceling. (This is the outdoor rink play area on the left as you drive toward the blue Quest Park clubhouse.)

The puddle jumper court has an asphalt surface covered by re-purposed artificial turf. Turf shoes are the best footwear for this surface, with sneakers the 2nd choice. Soccer cleats aren’t recommended.

School winter break (week of Feb. 19):

Cobb and Cherokee schools have a 2024 winter break the week of February 19th. The Junior Academy Girls will practice as usual for the kids who are staying in town. If your daughter will miss any of our sessions due to family travel, just e-mail Ward.

Spring break (week of April 1):

We typically switch from our regular schedule to a reduced “come if you can” schedule during school spring break. We’ll poll families about spring break availability in later March. Link: Spring Break 2023 schedule

Other pre-season notes:

Staying current:

Our communication channels are the same as in the fall.

We encourage you to check our web site twice a week now that we’re getting back in season. We’ll use it as our primary communication channel. Tip: bookmark our News page: https://www.nasaacademygirls.org/nasa-tophat-junior-academy-girls/news/ and you’ll be a click or two away from News and Schedule information.

We’ll also use our News page for any late-breaking weather-related schedule changes.

Quest weather effect:

This note is for practice sessions at United Quest Park. During the winter and early spring, temperatures at Quest (and Noonday) tend to feel 5-10 degrees colder than the true temperature due to the damp chill coming off Noonday Creek. Whatever the weather is at your house, have your daughter dress for 10 degrees colder and she’ll be prepared. Link: tips on cold weather attire

Playing at home:

Starting week 2, we’ll give the girls 1-2 suggested play at home topics. These will cover basic and intermediate skills, starting with dribbling. Our goal is for every Junior Academy player to be a competent (and confident) dribbler: able to use multiple surfaces of both feet, able to change directions and speed while keeping control of the ball, and able to escape from an opponent. If your daughter wants to get a head start, here are some activity links:

Basic dribbling skills: www.nasaacademygirls.org/playing-at-home/dribbling/basics/
Fun 1v1 dribbling games: www.nasaacademygirls.org/playing-at-home/dribbling/games/

Game day schedule:

We typically receive our game day schedule in mid-February. Using prior years as a guideline, we expect game days to start March 2nd and run through the weekend of May 18-19.

Schedule conflicts:

Please let us know as early as possible about any game day schedule conflicts. (E-mail to Ward is the preferred method.) We can work around most conflicts as long as we know about them by the weekend ahead of the game day.

Tournaments:

We won’t play any 2-day pre-season tournaments. We currently plan to play in a NTH-sponsored tournament in mid-May. This will likely be a big tournament, hosting 100+ teams from local and other areas, ages U8 up through U19, with each team playing three or four games over the weekend. This will be our final event of the spring season.

Depending on the number of U8 entrants, we may roster all of our girls, or only the girls with 2016 birth years. (We’ve found that few Junior Academy or pre-Academy programs at other clubs include 2017 girls.) Link: about tournaments

Quick links: