The Mad River United U17 Girls’ Division 1 Soccer team (formerly known as Destiny) traveled to Davis, California to play in the Davis College Showcase Tournament the weekend of December 15, 2007. The challenging Davis tournament, attended by over 20 college coaches scouting for players in U16, U17, and U18 age groups, was the first US Club tournament attended by MR United.
According to Coach Nick Parker, “US Club is a fast growing rival to the California Youth Soccer Association (CYSA). US club is known for its easy registration process, and a free agent mentality that allows players to move around between teams as Guest Players with little bureaucracy, something CYSA has traditionally struggled with. Most Bay area Division 1 and Division 3 teams are registered with both US Club and CYSA. US Club ranks the teams based on prior game results into Divisions A, B or C.”
MR United played their first game on Saturday morning against the hosting Davis Legacy U16 Girls. Both teams controlled the ball during the game with a strong defense for MR United and plenty of shots on goal by Davis Legacy. Although both teams had lots of shots on goal, nothing made it to the back of the net during the first half. In the second half, MR United successfully blocked about ten corner kicks by Davis. The game was scoreless with just a few seconds remaining when a ball found its way out of a scramble in the box into the MR United goal. The final score was Davis 1, MR United 0.
MR United played their second game on Saturday afternoon against a farm team for the Women’s Semi-pro franchise, the FC Rangers U18 team from Sacramento. The FC Rangers launched a high long shot that found its mark just minutes into the game. MR United played a strong defense the remainder of the game keeping everything else out of the box. Unfortunately, MR United was unable to score and the final score remained 1-0 for the FC Rangers.
MR United’s final match-up, against Sacramento United U17 Girls, started Sunday morning at 9:30 a.m. Sacramento scored in the first few minutes with a high cross. MR United’s strong defense and goalie Selina Bernard kept the Sacramento team from scoring for the rest of the game. In the second half, MR United’s Sazi Bhakti got past the Sacramento defense to face the goalie one on one. At that point, “stellar efforts were rewarded when Sazi Bhakti bamboozled both two defenders and the Sacramento goal keeper to slip in the tying goal!” The rest of the half saw no score and the games ended with a 1-1 tie.
According to Parker, “We only gave up 3 goals all weekend and that is amazing considering the high level of competition that we faced. We’ve recently suffered the loss of three out of four starting defenders and have had to establish an entirely new defensive line. In the three weeks preceding the Davis tournament, we went from conceding five goals in a practice game, to giving up only three total goals in a top level Division 1 California College Prep Tournament. The team is so much further along than they were this time last year. The High School season has toughened up the girls, and got them into good playing shape. Whereas last year, we played a great defensive game, this year we are stable enough to begin to play some soccer of our own.” Parker continued, "The central defensive partnership of Lynae McCarthy and Carlyn Girard was probably the highlight of the Tourney. Congratulations to Margot Oliver who acquitted herself well in her first taste of this super-level of soccer where everyone is both VERY FAST and PROFESSIONALLY TRAINED! This was truly a team effort and I am very proud of all the girls.”
The MR United team’s participation in the Davis Showcase also resulted in some communications from colleges. Several of the MR United players received recruitment emails from College Coaches expressing interest. Carlyn Girard received a recruitment letter from Jessup University and Selina Bernard received one from Menlo College. This is a very exciting time for the MR United team as they begin to plan for the possibility of playing soccer at the college level.
After the holiday season, the MR United team will resume action in the Petaluma League in the Santa Rosa area where they will face the Santa Rosa and SCA teams.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment