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!!!
Tired but happy kid!