12u? Really I think dons or mission. I think 14u NI will be team to beat this season.
No Dons or Mission at Back to School. Sorry, I was only speaking of this weekend.
Editā¦ I do think there is a good chance North Irvine does better in 12U than last year.
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Iām not ready to agree yet, but based on who is in the water for 14u NI, Iām thinking 14u Vanguard and 14u SOCAL-Patriot are in emergency rebuilding mode. I have the 14u top-5 for this coming season, in no particular order, as North Irvine, Newport, Mission, SD Dons, and CC United.
For Shore SCAR, it was fun to see American River was still included in the alliance.
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Both Vanguard and SoCal-patriot lost player to NI, but we will see them in EC cup probably. I canāt wait for your top 20.
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I think we all enjoy seeing the Marco rankings!
EC Cup will be an interesting one. Assuming Dons does the same as last year and does not being 12U I think it is possible that the final is a Mission vs North Irvine matchup. Not sure anyone else will have any 12U firepower.
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North Irvine took the 12U win in a shootout over LA Premier. Little surprised it wasnāt ORWP in the final, nice to see LA Premier being competitive.
North Irvine 14U doesnt seem to have had much challenge taking 1st.
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North Irvine red, Iām assuming B team beat LA premier A?? That premier team has two very good lefties from last year unless Iām missing something?
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LA Premier 12U beat ORWP 24 to 9 to go to the final. They then took North Irvine Black (A team) to a shootout.
Not sure about LA Premier 12U, but 14U has a lefty that has been very good the past couple years. He will be an older this year in 14u with their ODP center defender.
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Iām just shocked that La premier got beat by a B team. With LA premiers track record you would think they would compete for being in the top 10 for 14u
Surprising, maybe. Not sure what players were in the waterā¦ and this is early season.
For sure LA Premier had a lower tier 12U for 2026 so maybe their lack of youngers/pipeline strength is hurting their result? Their 14U relied on youngers for 2026 so maybe that logic works?
The LA Premier versus North Irvine Red was a good, competitive game. Not to take anything away from NI, because they fought hard and earned the win, but the outcome may have been different if it had been for medals rather than fifth place at the Back to School Tournament.
LA Premier were platooning with their rotations. All six out, new six in. Their starters went up 1-0 and all got pulled not even 2 minutes into the game. NI starters then put up two unanswered versus Premierās bench players to take the lead.
Again, I want to stress that I am not taking anything away from North Irvine Red. NI is ridiculously deep as a club this season and NI Red has players who would be A-teamers for other clubs. When the LA Premier starters came back in and evened up the score, North Irvine Red responded with a goal of their own to once again take the lead. They wanted it.
That said, it is way too early to draw conclusions on how these two teams look this season, but the game between them this past weekend was fun to watch.
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Didnāt LA Premier have one of their lefties play with Diablo?
IDK. The only 14u-eligible LA Premier lefty Iām even vaguely familiar with is the one who last year received an NTSC invite as a 13u. Iām pretty sure he was in the water for LA Premier wearing the #7 cap at Back to School, although I admit I could be mistaken.
No one from LA Premier played with Diablo. #7 played on Sunday only and as Marco mentioned they were rotating everyone in from the start of the game. They have a handful of second years but it will be a very young team this year.
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Rocktober
First time I see Dons, I wonder which team will go Red or Black. Good teams overall.
That is surprising. The Dons / Del Mar have refused to have anything to do with Rocktober for years.
For those who havenāt heard the story, Del Mar 12A was playing in Rocktober a number of years ago. In Del Marās first game of the tournament, the table messed up the score. The score was close but manageable and so Del Mar was trying to get all the kids on their team as much playing time as possible to run out the clock.
The scoreboard was wrong, and even during the game the parents were complaining to the referees who assured them theyād sort it out. The game ends and they give the win to the other team. The parents and coaches go nuclear.
To file a protest, you need $100 cash and the official protest form. One of the Del Mar parents actually had both. The protest got filed and they gave the officials a phone or iPad with the video footage from the game to prove where the scorers table had messed up.
In the rules for overturning a ruling, it says that video evidence cannot be used. The tableās scoresheet became the only thing the referees were allowed to use to determine the winner of the game. As it was the first game of the tournament with no way to win back in to the upper bracket, Del Marās entire tournament was spent blowing out teams to finish in the bottom half.
That was the last time Del Mar / SD Dons went to Rocktober. If the organizers were going to use kids who were more interested in their phones than in doing the job of scoring the game, then they had no interest in Rocktober and were reliably at Vegas Founders Cup instead.
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Scoreboard was wrong as in off by more than one goal? Or should have gone to shootout?
This is why some teams (particularly for HS where itās clearly allowed, but also for club/USAWP where permitted) opt to have their scorekeeper at the main table running a duplicate match log. The opportunity for screwups remains (resets of shot clocks when no reset should happen, etc), but the second book is a valid counterpoint to the main book being incorrect. Often USAWP event staff donāt permit scorekeepers at the desk, which takes this check and balance away (fine if the scoring table is staffed with experienced and unbiased adults as opposed to 15 year olds or folks tied to a given club).
I was there for that game. It was Del Mar vs. Pegasus in the playoffs.
The scoreboard was off by two goal. I believe it happened around the third period. Del Mar #4 scored a goal, but the scorekeeper mistakenly recorded it as a goal for Pegasus #4. Because of that error, the scoreboard showed the game as tied when Del Mar should have been ahead by two.
The Del Mar parents and coaches noticed the mistake during the game and brought it to the refereesā attention. The referees did not change the score at that time, but said they would double-check everything after the third period. When they reviewed it, they concluded that there was no problem based on what had been recorded on the official scoresheet.
So the game remained tied at the end of regulation and went to a shootout. Pegasus won the shootout and later went on to win the championship.
Del Mar protested the result after the game, but the protest was unsuccessful.
So yesāthe scoreboard was wrong by two goal, and if the goal had been credited correctly, Del Mar would have been ahead rather than tied at the end of regulation.
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This will also be a first showing for Vanguard and Greenwich. Looks to be a solid set of 12U teams.