The slippers are off, no longer a Cinderella story, The Southern California Blues Soccer Club officially kicked off the new season by attending the prestigious San Diego Surf Cup in late July (youngers), and early August (olders). The following weekend the club competed in it's own back yard at the Mission Viejo tournament, and closed the tournament season by taking the show on the road to the Pleasanton tournament in Northern California. It would be fair to say the Blues through hard work and dedication over the past six years have established themselves among Southern California's and perhaps the country's most competitive club programs for girls.

Although the face of some of the teams may change, the club and it's philosophy will remain constant. The club will consist of 9 powerful youth teams (U10-U18) as well as the Adult Women's Blues team which goes by the same name and flys the same colors. All Blues teams will again be under the same direction and will play the unique Blues "ball possession" style vs the "win at all costs" methods so often seen in the competitive youth soccer environment.

The Blues will now also sponsor a brand new U17 team for the upcoming season in an effort to fill in all of it's age groups. When asked about the new team, U17 team coach Hugh Donald told Blues News he felt good about the outstanding response at tryouts for the new team. It was Hugh's opinion the Coast Soccer League's competition procedure for placement of teams was not handled well with their decision to leave the U17 Blues out of the premier division of the league. "Our exclusion from the premier may turn out to be a good thing, by the end of the season we will clearly demonstrate that the league made a mistake. They have their rules, they made their decision, we will respect it, but we will now work extra hard to prove them wrong."

Director of coaching Larry Draluck tells Blues News the Blues have something very special and unique. "By all objective measures, the Blues are extremely successful. Our graduating seniors are positive productive people who are well thought of, and who go on to study and play at some of the top universities in the country. This year's group of 1998 graduates are following in their predecessor's footsteps already being recruited by colleges, with more awesome graduating classes waiting in the wings." "Our players do well at the Olympic Development Level, with a good number of them representing our club at the district, state, regional, and even national level." "Every one of our teams is competitive in league and state wide competition." We have the top staff for girls in Southern California with coaches like Tad Bobak, Hugh Donald, Rich Manning, Skip Jarvis, and new staff additions Randy Dodge and Mary Naimie." "Lastly and most importantly, the players are constantly improving and they are having a good time doing it."