Over the summer (and winter!) we spend many 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 U7-U15. Older age groups play in the Surf College Cup on the same weekend.
Overall Impressions: This was our second time attending this tournament (read our first experience here) and it definitely didn’t disappoint. The winner of each age bracket gets an automatic invite to the most prestigious tournament of them all- the summer Surf Cup. This year was especially exciting because all of the top bracket U9-U15 girls teams played at the So Cal Soccer Complex- a brand new complex in Oceanside. They also gave out tournament pins this year, which they didn’t have the last time we attended.
It’s always a big commitment for families to play over Thanksgiving Weekend, but if you are going to play that weekend, this is a great high level, well organized tournament. Our first game on Friday was scheduled for 7:45am which is not too fun the day after Thanksgiving, but all other game times were fine.
Dates:November 28-30, 2014 (Thanksgiving Weekend)
Cost: $400 for U7 | $695 for U8-U10 | $895 for U11-U15
Location: North San Diego County
Application Process/Organization/Coaching Conflicts: The application process was simple and straightforward through Got Soccer, but the “stay to play” portion of the event was difficult. Fortunately our team is a commuter team so it wasn’t an issue, but I really wish they would just increase the tournament fee and do away with hotel obligations! Our coach didn’t have multiple teams attending, so conflicts weren’t an issue.
Check In:Fabulous one hour prior check in at the field- yay! 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: lots and lots! Multiple brackets at most age levels
Strength of Competition: This is a premier tournament attended by many top level teams. Many teams travel from out of state to attend and our age group had teams from Hawaii, Nevada, Alaska and Colorado as well as teams from Northern California. It’s fun to see teams that you don’t play everyday.
Fields: Games were played across Northern San Diego County, but we were fortunate to play at the brand new So Cal Soccer Complex in Oceanside. This huge complex of 22 fields is beautiful and amazing!! Of course with any new venue there can be hiccups and there was a major issue on the first day of the tournament. The parking was so backed up that girls were going to be late for games and kids were getting out of cars and running. I wish I had a picture of the chaos, but it was crazy!!! By the second and third day, game times were staggered and most of the problems were resolved. The fields themselves are awesome, but the air was a bit smelly from a nearby composting facility. I didn’t smell it much where we played, but the fields towards the back of the facility could smell it strongly. I really liked that all the girls’ teams played at the same field- we got to see so many friends.
Beautiful So Cal Soccer Complex in Oceanside at 6:30am… before all the madness began.
All the fields were beautifully set up with canopies and benches provided for each team.
My LSG giving it her all… after 5 games in three days she was tired out, but happy that her team advanced to the semi-finals. It was a fun weekend for all and I hope we return next year!
We were there too, but weren’t as lucky as you. Our age group got stuck playing at Hickman Field in San Diego. The only nice part of that field was it was only minutes from our hotel. Unfortunately I didn’t realize how far the Oceanside complex was from where we were staying and we were almost “late” (for warm up) to the semifinal game! We enjoyed the tournament although we did have some referee snafoos at the end (running the clock 5 minutes over time, letting the other team re-shoot a penalty kick that was missed because the player shot before he blew the whistle…)
Bummer- we’ve played at Hickman too and I agree it’s not the nicest field! Yes, Oceanside is really far from the rest of the fields and so it definitely makes a difference where you stay. It would be helpful if they would publish all the fields beforehand so that people could make educated hotel decisions. That’s awesome that your team got to the semi-final though- sounds like the referee didn’t help though. Thanks so much for reading and commenting!