BLUES FAR WEST REGIONAL
BLUES TEAMS FIND SUCCESS
Sunday the 22nd of June 1997 was a traveling day for four Blues teams, including the newly formed U19 College Alumni Blues. These four teams recently represented Southern California at the Western Regional Tournament in Utah. The final games were held on Saturday the 28th and that day of competition turned out to be a bitter sweet one for the the Blues soccer club; as two of three Blues teams (U15, U17, U19) who had battled their way to the championship game went down to defeat.
The club was near and yet so far from sending three teams to the National Championship tournament to be held in Arizona during the August 1-3 weekend. As things turned out, the U15 Blues lost a heartbreaking final match in penalty kicks to the Eagles '81 (Washington), the U17 Blues got destroyed 7-1 by defending national champion Central Valley Mercury (Nor Cal), the U18 Blues were upset in the semifinals 2-1 by FC Portland (Oregon) giving up a penalty in the 87th minute of play, while the U19 Blues captured the club's first regional championship ever by defeating the San Diego Surf 2-0.
The U19 regional final turned out to be a rematch of the state final vs Surf who beat the Blues in the championship when the U19's narrowly missed winning an unprecedented fifth state title for the Blues, going down in penalty kicks to the U19 Surf. The U19 Blues are made up of former Alumni Blues who currently attend colleges across the country, along with three college all stars Jill Stevensen (UC Berkeley), Stephanie Strocco (UC Berkeley), and Amanda Clemens (Santa Clara) who joined the Blues this season in the club's quest for their first ever National Championship. The only bad news was that former Blues superstar Lori Maund (Stanford) is out of the U19 competition having injured her knee at a recent training session. The team was put together by Mark Wels and Bill Blodgett and coached by Blues coach of the year Rich Manning.
Blues administrators Bill Blodgett and Ron Swanson did a great deal of work preparing for the trip getting 60 girls and the coaches on flights and in one hotel taking up about 55 rooms. Having four teams at one hotel was a great gift in that it became a Blues celebration with each of the teams able to support the other and following the game to game results, not to mention the parent errr gatherings in evenings. Yes we can call them gatherings! Each team got funding from league and association sources bringing the cost for the girls to a very reasonable amount. Jim Regan of MPV productions designed a special logo for all the state champion teams and all the teams wore the t-shirts when they attended opening ceremonies at the Utah Jazz Delta Center.
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