Our soccer club arranged for some of our kids to participate in the pre-game activities at the Indy Eleven game.  Indy Eleven is in their second season as a professional soccer team in Indianapolis.  They play at the IU Michael A. Carroll Track & Soccer Stadium.  You can see where a couple of the players from the Indy Eleven came to our fields here.  

Well over 50 kids signed up to participate in one of 3 "elements" of the pre-game.  There was the tunnel crew, flag bearers, and player escorts.  Each kid was given an Indy Eleven t-shirt to wear during the event.   DCFC got 34 spots and Jayke and Emily were both chosen to be flag bearers.  Jayke was a little bummed that he didn't get to carry the American flag but was still excited to be able to participate.  We were playing a team from Canada so they got to carry the Canadian flag.  Emily got to carry the Indy Eleven flag.

Here are the four flag bearers carrying the flag onto the field.

Brynna, Matthew, Jayke, and Jonathan holding the flag below.  All are members of Jayke's team and Brynna plays on the other U11 team and has played on teams with Jayke in the past.

Emily, bottom left corner, holding the Indy Eleven flag.

Before they carried the flags onto the field all of our kids who were there from DCFC got to play in a mini game.  Below are some pictures of Jayke in action!

Indy scored the first goal!  The picture below shows the rowdy section that we were all wishing we were in.  They were having way more fun over there...gotta love soccer fans, they're nuts!

It was a little calmer where we sat.

The game ended in a tie.  We had a bunch of tired cold kids on the way home, but they had a lot of fun.  I want to go back soon!