Agree Mission Patriot game could be great. We should have much better idea how every team looks after this tournament. wonder why Greenwich games are listed as exhibitions?
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I’m hearing Ed Carrera for the Beast Boys.
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Anybody at the Patriot Games? Field looks great.
What about Nor Cal Futures Girls ?
Any thoughts of moving the futures from Oxnard and Westlake next weekend? How’s the 101?
Looks like 3 San Diego teams in the semifinals of the 14u tournament hosted by Patriot and Patriot knocked off Mission with relative ease.
My biggest take-aways from day #1:
In 14u, Greenwich is for real. If Greenwich were in the bracket instead of playing exhibition games, they’d be playing for medals today.
In 12u, La Jolla United lost both games they played against teams I’d thought they’d have no problem dispatching. Neither game appeared to be a fluke. SOCAL was up 3 with 3 minutes left in the game. LJU made a heroic effort to take it to a shootout, and then fell short. La Jolla was missing a couple of players but still it was a surprise.
Agree Greenwich has looked very good. Patriot looks very polished as well. Have not seen Del Mar play this tournament but they are playing Greenwich this morning.
Commerce held Greenwich to 7-7 after 3. Then their best guys got their third exclusion and it was over. Commerce and Greenwich definitely sleepers at 14u.
Any thoughts on the older age groups (16u/18u)?
La Jolla played without their star goalie this weekend. They will be in the mix. A shootout loss and a one goal loss with field players in goal.
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Welcome to week 22. Following a great weekend of water polo in Orange County, my new top-10 in the 12u Boys age group is:
- Vanguard – They’ve had no missteps so far this season and are the only contender who can make that claim.
- Newport Beach – Improved to 2-0 versus Mission by my count and hold their #2 spot despite falling one goal short in a wild finals match versus Del Mar at Patriot Games.
- Mission – Still big. Still physical. Credit to Coach Brett Luch and the Mission staff as every time I see this team they look better. Battled Newport to a shootout yesterday.
- Del Mar – Noticeably more solid than in weeks past and were able to take advantage of Newport’s semifinal slugfest versus Mission to grab gold at Patriot Games.
- 680 Drivers – Looking forward to seeing 680 matched up against the Southern Cali teams at Kap7 Intl in 3 weeks.
- La Jolla United – Had a lack of team depth exposed at Patriot Games, but this is a dangerous team when at full strength.
- CCU – Also looking forward to seeing them at Kap7 International.
- North Irvine – Their only loss this weekend was to tournament champ Del Mar, and even that was a shootout.
- Greenwich – Flew in to Patriot Games and showed everyone they mean business this year.
- LA Premier – They were miles better at Patriot Games as compared to Evan Cousineau 15 weeks ago.
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Watched a bit of Nor Cal Futures for Girls. Would love to hear thoughts from those with more experience on how the 14U girls performed
14u girls Lamo, 680 and Stanford looked tight. Santa Cruz, CCU, NorCal, Arroyo Grande seem well matched.
Where is the schedule for Dare to Dream? There were supposed to be Friday games but no schedule yet.
What an absolute crapshoot of a tournament. Del Mar, Patriot, Newport and Commerce should’ve just ran an inter squad scrimmage.
14u Patriot Tournament Observations.
- I watched games on Saturday and Sunday, but didn’t get to see Commerce play. Some teams I only saw once.
Team/Player Observations (No particular order)
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Del Mar appears to be the best all-around team with the most depth. There wasn’t much of a drop off from the starters to their 2nd line. Leon Kasza’n is an all-around talent, Cortez Chavez can impact the game at both ends, Sardor Sattarov (good all-around), center Chaco Clotfelter is on the come and many others. They also appeared. to have the best goalie.
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La Jolla’s No.1 goalie was out with an injury, but the back-up did a nice job. Impressed by the all-around skill level of Benjamin Essick. Very solid all-around team with size and speed. Only saw them once.
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San Diego Shores was missing a couple of starters but have a number of good players led by the explosive Axton Rasmusson, lefty Demetrius Golden, and smart and crafty Trace Jaseniuk.
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Mission has an entirely new squad from last season and it will be fun to watch them grow throughout the season. Finn Whelan, Greyson Bouquet, William Anderson, and Nolan Mehringer had some solid moments among others.
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Newport Beach: Like Mission, Newport has a very young team but they have made great strides since Cousineau Cup. Lost in a shootout to Mission in a game they controlled most of the way. A very balanced effort led by Henry Tatum, Weston Muellerlelle.
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LB Shore: This is definitely Shore’s most talented team in the last 5 years. They have some quality players in Ryan West, Shane Raaich, Declan Crans, and Chi Kredell. Played a number of the top teams very tough throughout the weekend.
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Patriot: Patriot is arguably a Top 4 Team in the nation along with Del Mar, Channel Islands, and CC United–although Greenwich could be a dark horse as well. Patriot is led by one of the most skilled and crafty players in the country in Drake Hamilton. Onni Viitanen had a good weekend as well. Nathaniel Gluzman-Chuang is a very good defender, and Dimitris Dimitrakopoulos is a grinding attacker. They were missing their starting goalie, but their young goalie did well.
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*Trojan has some weapons as well as they were led by Francesco Pintaric (athletic shooter). Ryan Lee (lefty with skill) , and George Sardarian (solid CD with potential).
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OCWPC received a strong performance from Hutch Zeulner (potent scorer/shooter) during the weekend. OC also has some quality athletes with a big center (did not get his name) that has a tremendous potential at 6-foot-3ish.
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Greenwich is a well-rounded team with a very good center (No. 8), some athletic attackers on the left side and some good depth. The HC also said they were missing some kids. Greenwich will definitely be in the hunt this spring and summer.
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His name is Aki Strong. He’s in his younger year at 14u this season and will still be 14u next season. I’d be surprised if he’s only 6’3", but he’s still raw. By my records, he’s only been rostered for two Junior Olympics.
With the venue being so far south, I was surprised more of the local PSW clubs didn’t give it a shot. Coronado is listed, but not Southern, Costa Del Sur, Poway Valley, NSD Stars, or Carlsbad.
It looks like it will be Kap7 International two weeks later where we get to see how everyone in 10u is doing.
I wonder how many 10u teams are ‘hiding’ in 12u.
Im just disappointed at this DtD tournament. It’s supposed to be USAWP’s ‘flagship’ tournament at the development level but this isn’t it.
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New podcast out there from GOLS → Dusty Litvak, Jimmy Heard, and Nate Last in first one. Sounds like GOLS will be filming Futures Games in SoCal.
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