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Vegas Baby! Tournament Tell All

By on April 30, 2013 in Soccer Mom, Tournament Tell All, Youth Soccer, Youth Sports

titletourney

Over the summer (and winter!) we spend most of our weekends traveling around Southern California attending soccer tournaments. As always, all opinions are my own and based on personal experience unless otherwise noted. If you have reviews of your own, please add in the comments!  This is a pretty belated review, so I can’t remember some things…

Las_vegas_sign.svg (1)Name: Vegas Cup   sponsored by the LVSA

Overall Impressions: Viva Las Vegas!  Obviously the location is a huge draw for this tournament and even though I’m not a gambler, there are lots of fun things to do in Vegas.  Aside from the location draw, the fields are gorgeous and it’s a great getaway for the family as well as good prep after coming back from the Winter Break.  I love this tournament!

Dates: January 2013 Martin Luther King Jr Holiday weekend

Cost: not on their site anymore…but it wasn’t a cheap tourney!

Location: Las Vegas, Nevada  (about a 5 hour drive from Los Angeles)

Application Process/Organization/Coaching Conflicts: The application process was organized and easy and coaching conflicts were minimized.  The only difficulty was in making sure we got the hotel booking of our choice.

Check In:  Check in the day of at the field was great.  It was a bit difficult to find the right location, but I think that was because we had an early game and they weren’t completely set up yet.  No pins (kind of a bummer) but plastic bracelets instead.  I never understand why they hand those out because the players can’t wear them on the field.  If you’d like to buy a sweatshirt for your player, make sure you do it the first day as they run out quickly.

Rules: 10 Point System.  Quarter Finals resulted in PKs if tied and Semis and Finals had extra time then PKs if tied.  It’s a three day tournament with the semis and finals on Monday.

Number of Teams at our Age Level:  U10- 30 teams, three flights; U12- 64 teams, four flights

Strength of Competition:  This is a premier (and huge!) tournament attended by many top teams as well as teams of all abilities.  The number flights made for appropriate competition for all.  There were teams from California, Utah, Texas and Colorado in attendance as well as some from even farther away.  It was fun to meet all sorts of different people.

Fields: All our games were played on the giant and beautiful Bettye Wilson and Kellogg Zaher soccer complexes.  These huge complexes make me so jealous!  We don’t have anything of this caliber near us and the view is gorgeous as well.  There are other smaller fields used as well, but we didn’t play on those.

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Referees: I can’t really remember the referees, so it couldn’t have been that bad…right??

Weather:It was beautiful and sunny during the day, but got very cold at night.  Little soccer girl asked to wear her Under Armor- a sure sign that it’s freezing.

Hotels/Restaurants/Attractions: It’s Vegas Baby!!  This is the true draw of the tournament and we had a great time.  One thing that’s very important is to reserve your hotel rooms early for your team.  They have special pricing and sell out quickly.  As a condition of playing in the tournament, teams are required to stay in certain hotels, but there is a wide variety of choices.  Apply for the tourney early and reserve your rooms the day the email with the hotels comes out!

We stayed at the JW Marriott which is a beautiful hotel in Summerlin very close to the fields.  There was plenty of room to roam for the girls and a Starbucks inside the hotel made for easy mornings.  Unfortunately, their pool was closed for the winter, but the girls enjoyed the hot tub one night.  I think next year we are going to try and stay at the Red Rock which has a million things to do, but is on the expensive side.  It’s nice to stay in Summerlin so that you are out of most of the Vegas smoke and other stuff that is inappropriate for kids…

We did go to the strip one night and walked around and had a seriously overpriced dinner.  After walking around the kids begged to go to Circus Circus.  It’s pretty nasty in there, but the girls loved going on the rides and wanted to stay longer.  Next time I think we’ll allow more time for that.

I didn’t have time to organize team meals this trip which was kind of a bummer.  There are many, many restaurants around and it’s always fun to go as a team, but definitely takes some organizing.  This was one area where we fell short and could have had a lot more team bonding.

Overall we had a great time and I’m excited to go back next year!

vegas1a

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Surf Thanksgiving Tournament

By on November 27, 2012 in Seriously Soccer, Tournament Tell All, Youth Soccer, Youth Sports

titletourney

Over the summer (and winter!) we spend most of our weekends traveling around Southern California attending soccer tournaments. As always, all opinions are my own and based on personal experience unless otherwise noted. If you have reviews of your own, please add in the comments!

Name: Surf Thanksgiving Tournament(San Diego Surf Soccer Club) Girls and Boys U8-U15.  Older age groups play in the Surf College Cup on the same weekend.

Overall Impressions: This was our first time attending this tournament and we were very excited to go!  The winner of each age bracket gets an automatic invite to the most prestigious tournament of them all- the summer Surf Cup.  Although our teams had a great time and it was definitely worth attending, there were a few things that were a little strange.  One of those was that there were no pins for the girls!  Really?  That much money for a tournament and you can’t provide pins?  I know it sounds silly and the older girls didn’t care, but the younger ones definitely still love the pins.  I heard a lot of grumbling about that from other managers as well.

Dates:November 23-26, 2012 (Thanksgiving Weekend)

Cost: $545 U9/U10 $795 U11/U15

Location:North San Diego County

Application Process/Organization/Coaching Conflicts:The application process was organized and easy and the tournament director, Brenda Sampiere, was very efficient and quick to answer questions.  I know they tried to avoid coaching conflicts, but our coach had a game ending and starting at the same time at fields 30 minutes apart.  This was his only conflict, so the rest of the weekend worked out very nicely.  I would love to go back, but I would hope for a later game on Friday so that we didn’t have to leave on Thanksgiving.  Many teams applied and were not accepted, so we were happy that both our teams were able to play even though neither team advanced.

Check In:Fabulous one hour prior check in at the field!  Check in was organized and easy and was also required before and after each game.

Rules: 10 Point System; 25 minute halves. Quarter Finals resulted in PKs if tied and Semis and Finals had extra time then PKs if tied.

Number of Teams at our Age Level:  U10- 24 teams, U12- 28 teams

Strength of Competition:  This is a premier tournament attended by almost all of the top level teams.  Many teams travel from out of state to attend and our age group had teams from Hawaii and Utah as well as teams from Northern California.  There was only one bracket, so lower level teams really struggled.

Fields: Games were played across Northern San Diego County, and our girls played in Rancho Santa Fe and by Miramar College.  I love seeing all teams of a single age group at one field.  It’s fun to meet new friends and see girls on all different teams.  The tournament volunteers did a great job of keeping things moving and all of our games were on time.  It wasn’t a concern for us, but I heard people complaining about playing late afternoon games in the dark on fields with no lights. Some of the fields were still muddy from the rain the week before, but there wasn’t much that could be done about that.

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Referees: This was where both our teams had some bad experiences.  Our 12s had a keeper catch a ball in the goal and it wasn’t counted as a goal.  Big soccer girl was standing at the post and had a clear view.  They also had games where free kick after free kick was called against them.  Our 10s also had some strange situations with the worst being our girl on a breakaway right in front of the goal and shooting having a foul called against her.  The ball goes in the net, but the ref gives a free kick instead of the goal.  He comes over to apologize, but doesn’t fix the situation.  We also had a girl running down the field with plenty of daylight called to stop because they were playing with the wrong size ball. Strange situations that just seemed to pile up all together.  That being said, I sure wouldn’t want to be a ref.

Weather:It was beautiful.  The temperature hovered around 70-75 degrees under very sunny skies.

Restaurants/Attractions: Our team stayed at the Hampton Inn in Poway which was a very nice hotel for a little price.  It was far from the freeway (about 5 miles) which was a bummer, but other than that it was a great place to stay.  We were also able to rent a meeting room and bring in Olive Garden for 70 people for a very fun team dinner on Friday night.  Many people also went to Sea World or the Zoo, both of which are close by.  San Diego is a beautiful city and always fun to visit.

surf5

Yuck!

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Blues Cup- Tournament Tell All

By on September 6, 2012 in Seriously Soccer, Soccer Mom, Tournament Tell All, Youth Soccer

Over the summer we spend most of our weekends traveling around Southern California attending soccer tournaments. As always, all opinions are my own and based on personal experience unless otherwise noted. If you have reviews of your own, please add in the comments!

Name: Blues Cup(So Cal Blues) Girls Only

Overall Impressions: This is my favorite tournament and I can’t wait to return next year!  Although it’s on the expensive side, the strength of competition, the fields and the overall organization make this tourney well worth the money.  I especially loved the pins and the medals…especially since Big Soccer Girl won one! (Even though it was a finalist medal and not a champion, it was still awesome!)  This is a three day tournament with quarter-finals, semi-finals and championship games, so teams have the potential to play six games.  Amy Rodriguez (A Rod from the Women’s National Team and USC) was there to hand out the medals!  The girls were so excited to meet her and she was very sweet.

E&P

ARod

Dates:September 1/2/3, 2012 (Labor Day Weekend)

Cost:$700 U9/U10 $800 U11/U19

Location:San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente, Laguna Nigel

Application Process/Organization/Coaching Conflicts:This is the most organized and thoughtful tournament that I’ve ever been to.  Every aspect was excellent and our game times were fantastic.

Check In:Two choices- Friday night or Saturday morning. Hooray! Although we had to be there a bit earlier than our game time required, check in was organized and easy.  Check in with the field marshals before each game was required.

Rules: 10 Point System; 25 minute halves for U9/U10 and 30 minute halves for U11/U19. Quarter Finals resulted in PKs if tied and Semis and Finals had extra time then PKs if tied.

Number of Teams at our Age Level:36 teams, 2 tiers (It’s a big tournament!!)

Strength of Competition:  This is a premier tournament attended by most of the top level teams.  Many teams travel from out of state to attend and our age group had teams from Georgia and Nevada as well as teams from Northern California.

Fields:Games were played across San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente and Laguna Nigel, but our age group played at beautiful Rancho Capistrano “The Ranch” with the finals at Oaks Polo Field.  I love seeing all teams of a single age group at one field.  It’s fun to meet new friends and see girls on all different teams.  The tournament volunteers did a great job of keeping things moving as well as clean!  All of our games were on time.  They even had golf cart shuttles to get to the further fields!

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Referees: Overall they were better than usual, except for two exceptions.  The ref of our first game kept calling off-side when our player was behind the defenders when the ball was kicked.  We must have had at least 10 off side calls, some of which were valid, but most were not.  Our opposition kept playing the off side trap and it was especially effective with this ref…lol.  He also called over 10 free kicks on our team when there clearly seemed to be rough play on both sides.  The referee for the final was very frustrating as he seemed reluctant to call THREE obvious hand balls in the box.  He would look over and then seemed to make a “make up call” and give us a free kick for some minor infraction instead of calling the penalties in the box.  Oh well, that shouldn’t have made the difference, but our girls just couldn’t seem to find the back of the net.

Weather: It was hot, but after playing in Escondido a couple of weeks ago, everything is relative.  The temperature hovered around 85-90 degrees under very sunny skies.

Restaurants/Attractions: We chose not to stay for this tournament as it’s about an hour commute for us, but there are plenty of nice hotels in the area.  San Juan Capistrano is a beautiful little town with the mission in the middle.  The area around the mission is very scenic and there are numerous restaurants and shops.  With a big group it can be hard to find places to eat, but we went to Ruby’s Diner (twice!)  They have a great covered patio overlooking the town and it’s up on the second level so it gets a nice breeze.

rubys

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Dave Shelton Memorial- Tournament Tell All

By on August 13, 2012 in Seriously Soccer, Soccer Mom, Tournament Tell All, Youth Soccer, Youth Sports

titletourney

Over the summer we spend most of our weekends traveling around Southern California attending soccer tournaments. As always, all opinions are my own and based on personal experience unless otherwise noted. If you have reviews of your own, please add in the comments!

Name: Dave Shelton Memorial(FC Heat)

Dates:August 11/12

Cost:$550 U9/U13    $625 U14/U19

Location: Ryan Park, Escondido

Application Process/Coaching Conflicts:The application process was easy, and the tournament director (Suzie Stephens- my new friend!!) bent over backwards to accommodate us.  She was awesome and amazing.

Check In:At field before first game. Hooray! It was organized and easy.

Rules: 10 Point System; 20 minute halves for U9/U10  25 minute halves for U11/U14  30 minute halves for U15 and above.  Championship game were 5 minutes longer per half resulting in PKs if tied.

Number of Teams at our Age Level:4 teams

Strength of Competition: Overall there was a mix of teams in our bracket with 2 higher level teams and 2 teams who are just starting out. The top two teams battled it out in pool play and then in the finals.

Fields:All the games were played at Ryan Park which is a beautiful multi field facility.  There were concession stands galore as well as real bathrooms- hooray!  It was a great tournament atmosphere.  Parking was plentiful, but some of it was on dirt.  I wish we had something like this close to home.

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Referees:Some of the refs were very young, including one hilarious side ref who was about the same age as the girls.  He was great though and had the quote of the day, “Don’t you think referees should have to pass a hearing and eyesight test?” after numerous incorrect offside calls.  We had a great ref for the final who complimented our coach and our girls after the game.

Weather:HOT, HOT, HOT.  This is the hottest I’ve ever been at a tourney.  It was over 100 degrees and after sitting in the sun for hours, my car said this when I got back to it… Yep, it says 111 degrees.

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I was concerned about the girls, but fortunately the refs gave water breaks in the middle of each half.  It was definitely needed and I’m glad they took the health of the kids into consideration.  My kid traditionally doesn’t do well in heat, but she’s done a lot of conditioning lately and I think it made a big difference.

Restaurants/Attractions:This was an away weekend for us and we had a great time!!!

We stayed at the Courtyard Marriott in Rancho Bernardowhich was very accommodating.  The rooms were a nice size and the facility had a pool and a restaurant.  The restaurant hired extra servers so that we could have our whole party (about 40 people) eat together on Saturday night.  The girls played in the pool a bit and then came in the dining room to eat.  It was perfect and so easy.  (Good thing that people didn’t have to drive….lol)

On Friday night we ate at the Elephant Bar in Rancho Bernardowhich had great food, but the service was a bit slow.  Most people drove down on Saturday so this was only a party of 12.  The manager was very nice and booked a table for us in advance.

For lunch on Saturday we took a wrong turn going to the freeway, but found a little gem of a restaurant in Escondido called Rock n’ Jenny’s Italian Subs.  The food was amazing, but it’s on the small side so it wouldn’t be a good place for a team lunch.

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For lunch on Sunday we all went to Spires Restaurant which was fine, but very slow and had trouble fitting us all in.  We squeezed together and most importantly, all the girls were able to sit together, eat and cool off in the air conditioning.

Overall Thoughts: This is the first time we’ve played in this tournament and although it was very well organized, I’m not sure if we’ll go back.  The heat was crazy!!!  We had such a fun weekend though and brought home another championship!  Thanks again to FC Heat for a great tourney.  Someone especially liked the medal ceremony…

fcheatem4crop

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Cypress Cup- Tournament Tell All

By on August 13, 2012 in Seriously Soccer, Soccer Mom, Tournament Tell All, Youth Soccer, Youth Sports

titletourney

Over the summer we spend most of our weekends traveling around Southern California attending tournaments.  As always, all opinions are my own and based on personal experience unless otherwise noted.  If you have reviews of your own, please add in the comments!

Name:  Cypress Cup

Dates:August 4/5

Cost:$420 U9/U10 $550 U11/U19 (A good price point- especially for the littles!)

Location:Cypress/Bellflower/Westminster

Application Process/Coaching Conflicts:  The application process was easy, and we didn’t need any coaching conflict accommodations.  Our Saturday games were very spread out with a 9am and a 5pm, but we were close enough to go home in between.

Check In:At field before first game.  Hooray!  The people at check in were very nice.

Rules: 10 Point System; 25 minute halves for U9/U12 and 30 minute halves for U13/U19 (nice!)  Championship game resulting in a tie will go straight to PKs…this happened to us!

Number of Teams at our Age Level:  10 teams with two flights

Strength of Competition: Overall there was a mix of teams in our bracket with 4 higher level teams and 2 teams in a rebuilding stage.  There was some great soccer played!

Fields: We played at Stephen Foster Elementary school in Lakewood which is a very nice facility.  The grass was in great shape, but whoever lined the fields mismarked the goalie boxes so the girls had to use cones.  That was a little confusing for the girls, but the referee was forgiving and the field was fixed later in the day.  There were snack stands, tacos and a very popular snow cone booth.  Even though there were only two fields, it made for a fun tournament atmosphere.  There also were real bathrooms- a definite plus.  There was both street and free lot parking.

Referees:1 for U9/U10; 3 for U11 and above.  We had some very questionable refereeing with one of them not calling fouls.  I think that little girls need to be taught how to play good soccer and the difference between aggressive play and hurting people.  That wasn’t the tournament’s fault, but they let us know that one of them wouldn’t be returning the next day.  We also had a very good refs who kept the games under control and were fair.

Weather:  A mix…morning games were cool but it heated up during the day.  Nothing out of the ordinary.

Restaurants/Attractions:

If you are coming from out of town, the fields are in the vicinity of Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm and more.  It would be a very fun team travel weekend.

We went to Cocoson Lakewood Blvd. which accommodated all of us in a back room.  In between the semis and the championship game we were able to have all the girls sit down, eat a relatively healthy lunch and enjoy the air conditioning.  Our server was very nice.

Overall Thoughts: This is the first time we’ve played in this tournament and I would definitely return.  The Cypress parents and coach at our age level are classy and our teams always have great games.  We also won, so that was exciting!!!

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cypressla2

Tired but happy kid!

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LA Premier FC So Cal Summer Showcase- Tournament Tell All

By on July 29, 2012 in Soccer Mom, Tournament Tell All, Youth Soccer

titletourney

I’m starting a new feature here on the ol blog- Tournament Tell All.  Over the summer we spend most of our weekends traveling around Southern California attending tournaments.  As always, all opinions are my own and based on personal experience unless otherwise noted.  If you have reviews of your own, please add in the comments!

Name: LA Premier FCSo Cal Summer Showcase

Dates:July 21-23, 2012 (This tourney has Monday Championship games)

Cost:$595 (a bit high!)

Location:Pasadena area

Application Process/Coaching Conflicts:  The application process was easy, and they accommodated our requests for no coaching conflicts.  Our Sunday schedule was crazy with a 9am game and a 7:50pm game!  If we had advanced to the final it would have been at 9am on Monday morning.

Check In: Friday night check- blech!  Fortunately, my good friend checked our team in so I didn’t have to go- hooray!

Rules:10 Point System; 25 minute halves

Number of Teams at our Age Level:  8 teams with one flight

Strength of Competition: Overall there were not a lot of strong teams at our age level.  None of the top teams were there, but LA Premier itself has a good team…and we lost to them.  Overall we scored 16 goals and had 1 against and didn’t make it to the finals…oops!  There was a team from El Paso, Texas playing so it was fun to see a team from another state.

Fields: We played at La Canada High School which has two nice fields- grass and turf.  Unfortunately playing on a turf field when it’s 90 degrees is not a great experience.  It’s an older field so the heat radiates off the black surface underneath the “green.”  There is a big grassy area near the field to set up camp for your team and there were refreshments and snow cones available at the field.  Permanent restrooms are available at the field.  Other fields used were Pasadena HS, Glendale Sports Complex, Muir HS, Victory Park and Villa Park.

Weather:  Hot!  La Canada is hot and smoggy, but beautiful.

Restaurants/Attractions: We ate at Dish Restaurant which was wonderful!  They were very accommodating and sat us all at big tables in the bar area.  The food was great as was the service.  Definitely call ahead and reserve a table if you have a big group.

Overall Thoughts:This is the first time we’ve played in this tournament and I’m not sure I would go back.  We did get 4 guaranteed games which was great, but our schedule was crazy.  I’ve never been so happy not to advance to the finals.

The tournament itself was a bit disorganized with the referees not knowing how long the halves were.  The game before ours played at 30 minute half and then a 20 minute half because the refs didn’t know the halves were supposed to be 25 minutes.  It didn’t appear that they bothered to tell the coaches judging by how one of them was screaming that there was still time on the clock.  In our game they also had wacky timing because they started the clock when the game was supposed to start, not when it actually started about 5 minutes later.  They didn’t leave enough time between games (5 minutes!) so there was no warm up time on the field whatsoever.  None of this really affected the girls, but it was kind of amusing.  If the game had been close it would have been a concern.

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