I am told “Patriot Red” in 14uAA is Patriot Navy, minus their top 3-4 players. I guess this mystery will be solved in the next few hours.
I’ll take the under on Newport upsetting Del Mar in 14AA and am definitely curious to see how deep of a run Greenwich can make. Most of the teams who played them at the Patriot Invitational treated it very much like a scrimmage/showcase and went equal playtime, so this weekend will be much more indicative of their standing.
Alright! First day is close to being done! Who has any thoughts?
In 12u AA, Temple City and Patriot fought to a 6-6 tie in the first game of the tournament.
Hours later, I was sitting on the deck with my back against a wall at Loma Verde scrolling through the schedule while watching the Temple City versus CC United B game near a couple coaches doing the same. Temple City had the game well in hand and took their foot off the gas as teams do. CCU B scored their fourth goal, and one of the coaches near to me says to the other coach “They’re going to regret doing that. They can’t let CCU score any more. Patriot won’t let them score 4.”
SD County Cup doesn’t do shootouts or golden goals to break ties. If at the end of regulation the two teams have the same number of goals, then it goes in the books as a tie. The tiebreaker is in who can post the biggest beat down on the third member of the round-robin group. That is not as fun. I love the tense atmosphere of a shootout or extra time to determine the winner.
Did you watch the game Patriot & Temple City game?
Saw CIU & Greenwich was a close one as well.
I did. Patriot was up 5-2 at the start of the 4th. Went up 6-5 with a minute left. Chased the goalie and got countered with 40 on the clock for the tie.
How many 16u does Newport have playing down in 14u boys this weekend?
You would think… but you would be wrong.
Like Champions Cup I think Super 8’s can play.
My understanding the 8th grade rule is gone. Been that way for a few years.
“ 1. All athletes must meet age level requirements for each division.”
Not sure which rule takes precedence here, but there are absolutely 16U boys in this tournament. Presumably they are 8th graders.
14U girls. Not exhibition.
Fun weekend of games across all brackets in 14U AA! Aside from the top two contenders — Patriot and Newport — there were definitely some surprises.
1. Patriot
2. Newport
3. South Coast
4. Santa Cruz
5. Greenwich
6. Stanford
7. Lamo
8. 908
Greenwich came to play! No SB 805 or San Clemente Would love to hear others’ take on placements and standout performances.
One athlete. Curren Francisco is 14 (8th Grade) but unfortunately, he turns 15 before JOs
Great weekend of water polo. It will be fun to see what these teams look like at JOs!
Tournament Recap!
Overall trends I noticed:
10u Divisions
In the 10u girls division I predicted a runaway from Newport. They won the final 14-5 against Lamo. I had the final games correctly predicted with Newport vs Lamo and 805 vs North Irvine. North Irvine was impressive and seems to have brought their girls. Newport is the top of the class, with Lamo a step ahead of everyone else. Behind that it’s currently North Irvine, but Commerce and Del Mar have a chance at JOs. The final of the 10u Coed division was closer than expected. I thought Del Mar was going to have a big lead the whole game, but Patriot was leading after the 1st, and tied at half and at the end of the third. Badly missed shots and turnovers gave Del Mar a 4-0 run in the 4th before Patriot put their bench in. I didn’t expect Del Mar to struggle like this, but they have class and played it out. In the bronze medal game Commerce deposed of Greenwich early in the game, having a 9-3 lead at half. They played it out professionally. Greenwich was the real surprise of the tournament, beating Newport in a great quarter final game late on Saturday night.
12u Girls
805 took Patriot in the final. I think I counted 10 bar outs for Patriot, spurring my earlier trend I mentioned above. Back Bay losing to Davis was a surprise. Davis played Newport close, so definitely another NorCal team to watch out for. Marco was proven correct. This SB805 team has it all. Size, speed, a fantastic goalie and disciplined girls. Had Newport not run into Patriot in the quarterfinals I believe they would have placed third. They have size and discipline and most importantly depth.
12u Boys
Newport dominated Socal in a (for me) surprising semi-final. I had been watching SoCal for a couple weeks now and I didn’t expect them to not be able to handle Newport’s defense. Too many bad passes. It looked like they played a little deflated against Del Mar in the bronze medal game. Del Mar, Greenwich and Patriot can play with anybody, but especially Patriot finds a way to lose in games they are winning. Mission looks like they can challenge and compete for medals at JOs. They have size, speed, IQ and finish their shots.
14u Girls
Patriot was a class above everyone else. Newport was a clear second. Those two teams are in a different athmosphere. Lots of upsets in this bracket. I saw a great South Coast team and a Santa Cruz team that I had overlooked in the initial brackets. Those teams have lots of shooting quality and are well coached. Newport looked fantastic until they played Patriot Navy. In the final it became obvious early on that either Patriot was going to miss their shots or run away with it. The closest game Newport played all weekend was against Patriot B, who ended up 9th.
14u Boys
Del Mar finds a way to win. They can rely on a top-of-the-class goalkeeper and have a lot of depth. They play 10-12 players each game and their second string can hang and score against all other team’s starters. It’s impressive to see them compete every weekend at every tournament and continue to get better each week. Lamo, CCU, SD Shores, Greenwich, Newport and LA Premier were impressive to me as well. I went for upsets in this division, but the favorites showed why they were favorites. Great parity in this division, but I find it hard to see who is going to beat Del Mar if they keep improving week in week out.
Anyways, hope someone else can fill in on the games and teams I wasn’t able to watch this weekend!
This isn’t true, Stanford lost to Newport 11-8
7-4 to 11-8. I picked the 7 goals scored as the closest game. But you’re right that’s about equal.
Edit:
I didn’t watch either game so I’m not sure what the flow of the game was. Maybe Newport was up 7-1 and out in their bench against Patriot and they had to play their starters the entire time against Stanford.
If you know, please enlighten us!
Oh one more trend I noticed!
Reffing was…. Quite good?!
Great write-up and I agree with nearly everything.
In 12u Girls, the only games I got to see were the semi-finals and finals. SB805 was a level above the other three teams on that day. In the final game, it was cold, gray, off-and-on rainy, and by the end of the first quarter it didn’t look like Patriot had any fight left in them. Better conditions may have different results but SB805 has the look of a championship squad.
In 12u Boys, I love SOCAL’s coach. I’m not sure if you had cast 1990’s Jim Carrey and 1990’s Al Pacino to play the parts of the Greenwich and SOCAL coach they could have emoted as much. Those coaches poured everything they had into getting the best from their kids. Both of their teams looked great and it was a shame one had to lose. I don’t see SOCAL as at the level of Newport but they’re good.
It is also worth noting that Newport did what they did to SOCAL in the semi-finals with Newport playing shorthanded as their starting center was serving a brutality suspension. The Newport versus La Jolla game got chippy.
The 12u Boys teams from Northern California all impressed. Stanford was top of the pack followed by CC United, SJX, and Lamorinda. 680 Drivers doesn’t look great if you are only looking at the bracket but they were fighting hard in every game I watched. I’m hoping Hubypolo was there as he posts the North Irvine games, and North Irvine played three of the top Bay Area clubs.
In 14u Boys, I’m not ready to crown Del Mar yet. They were the best of the field at SD County Cup, but there were CIU and Patriot shaped holes in the competition. The last day of JOs in 14u is going to be a fight.
6 min quarters will also make a difference.