PLEASANTON TOURNAMENT RESULTS
BLUES IMPROVE LEVEL OF PLAY THROUGH PERSISTENCE
In the last tournament of the pre (summer) season, the Southern California Blues Soccer Club teams demonstrated great progress since they began the season. While not all of the teams achieved their goal of capturing the Pleasanton Tournament Championship, most have come a long way with regards to their level of play and understanding. Five of the eight Blues teams entered in the Labor Day Invitational were still alive on championship Monday.
It has been a difficult season so far for the U10's but things are beginning to look up. After the first two tournaments these girls had failed to win a game. Rumor has it that the coaches had made a serious deal with the 8 and 9 year olds prior to the trip up to Pleasanton. The negotiations were demanding but the coaches and players finally agreed to pizza if the girls could come out on the winning side of the ledger. What do you know, with pizza in the balance, the team notched their first two victories of the season.
On the serious side, this team shows signs they are beginning to understand the concept of Ball Possession. The girls also made strides towards winning the Blues Dennis Rodman award for most creative hair (photos to follow).
Another Blues team showing signs of improvement in the understanding of the Blues trademark style of play is the U11. They blew out the competition in their first two games then had a stirring come from behind victory in their third game. Losing 2-0 they managed 3 goals in the last 15 minutes to capture a 3-2 win.
Advancing to the semifinal they squared off against Cupertino. After a 2-2 tie the game went right into penalty kicks and the Blues came out on the short side. They then responded with a 2-0 victory in the consolation game to take third place in the tournament.
Although the U12 Blues have been extremely successful this season; they have one tournament championship and two other final appearances, they had yet to win a championship against top competition. The Labor Day Weekend put a stop to all that. With determination the girls made it back to their fourth consecutive final game.
It was a rewarding championship in that the girls had been working hard all month long to improve their level of play. Win or lose the team played it's best game of the season in the semifinals. An unassisted goal by Dana Knowles helped knot up the game at 1-1 and after a scoreless second half, the game was decided by penalty kicks. Goalkeeper Stacey Sinkway came up big as she saved three out of the five penalties. The final game was against the defending Northern California State champs and the Blues knocked them off 4-1.
The team of the tournament had to be the U13 Blues. Fed a strict diet of Ball Possession for an entire month, it all unfolded in the Pleasanton tournament. Highlighting the weekend was a rematch of the Surf tournament, Blues vs Mustang Thunderbirds where the Blues got beat 2-0. In this game, however, things seemed to go the Blues way as they converted a high percentage of chances and won the game.
In the final, what do you know, the Blues matched up with the T-Birds for the third time this season. This game would turn out to be more representative of the competition as the game could have gone either way. The Blues took a 1-0 lead and the Birds tied the game up mid way through the second half. Kim Devine was the difference as she scored what turned out to be the winning goal in a 3-1 victory and the Blues first tournament championship of the season.
Getting to their second straight semifinal of the tournament season, the U14 Blues managed to outshoot their opponent (Pleasanton) 27-3 and lose the game 1-0. This capped off a weekend that saw the Blues play some great soccer yet have difficulty scoring goals. For what is was worth the team did win the consolation game over the Las Virgenes Blazers by a score of 5-0 to capture third place in the tournament. Leading scorers on the team are Diana Jonas with nine, Lindsey Huie with six, followed by Vicki Bloom who has five goals so far this season.
Coming off a championship in the Mission Viejo Tournament two weeks before the Blues were poised to win their second straight tournament of the season. Sorry Charlie it was not to be. With more goal scoring difficulties the Blues played fairly well but ran into the thorn in their foot so far this season. The Surf U15 who beat them in the final of the Surf tournament was again the obstacle the Blues could not overcome losing 3-1 in the semifinal.
The consolation was an even worse affair as the Blues played an uninspired game and got rocked 6-2 by the Alcosta Crunch.
In a rematch of last season's state cup championship the Blues took on defending State Champion West Orange County United. It was a game niether team could afford to lose if they wanted to advance. The Blues gave up the first goal on a sloppy back pass then tied the game shortly thereafter on a Tracey Winzen header on a corner. Mid way through the second half the Blues gave up their second goal to Riptide on a well designed free kick to make the final score 2-1.
The Blues won their last two games but were unable to qualify for the wildcard spot in the semifinals even though they were able to win 7-0 in their last game paced by Michelle Bannister.
In three matches the Blues U18 scored one goal where they tied in three consecutive games failing to advance to the championship round to defend the championship they won the year before. The girls open up league play with the powerful Mission Viejo Shamrocks!
BACK TO BLUES NEWS
BACK TO HOME PAGE