Jefferson Cup - Brackets Posted

I got an email from a friend of mine, Tim Tickle, this morning letting me know that the brackets have been posted for the Jefferson Cup event in Richmond, VA, in late March.  Tim's daughter Meagan is a very good player who plays with the Blue Valley Stars Ratpack team (Kansas, MO).  Meagan had guest played with our team last summer at the US Club Soccer Regional in Rockford (IL) and Tim and I have kept in contact since then.  We had talked about Meagan joining us as a guest for the Jefferson Cup as I have a player (Hannah) who can't make the trip due to a family conflict.  Not sure in which direction I'll go with this yet as 16 is a good number to travel with.

Anyway, Tim emailed congratulations about getting in the top flight (Yes!!!) and that Group C looked like the Group of Death.  I was obviously ecstatic that the girls were accepted into the top flight, but this feeling was then coupled with a feeling of semi-dread as I thought Tim meant we were in Group C and had the toughest draw.  I clicked at lightspeed over to the website and discovered that indeed Group C had three very solid teams put together.  However, we were not one of the teams in Group C, but rather placed in Group A. 

Here are the teams in the top flight.

Girls U13 Championship

Group A

BANGU TSUNAMI FC 93/94 BLUE (Minnesota)

HIGHLAND DYNAMITES (New Jersey)

HOCKESSIN HOTSPUR (Delaware)

Group B

BETHESDA SC FREEDOM 93 (Maryland)

FREEHOLD SHOOTING STARS (New Jersey)

MCLEAN MPS STRIKERS (Virginia)

Group C

CAROLINA ELITE 93 GIRLS PREMIER (South Carolina)

CHANTILLY BURN (Virginia)

MT. LAUREL UNITED POWER (New Jersey)

Group D

FC PENNSYLVANIA STRIKERS (Pennsylvania East)

SCORPIONS SOCCER U13 ELITE (Massachusetts)

SOUTH CHARLOTTE 93 SCSA GOLD G (North Carolina)

When applying to this event, I thought that we would be a shoe in for the second flight and a bit of a long shot for the top flight.  If rankings are any indicator (which many times they are not), I'm actually a little disappointed as we seem to have the weakest bracket with #1 team from Delaware and the #4 team from New Jersey.  I would have truthfully much preferred it if we had the top two teams in the event in our group as I want the competition and want to see how we match up with the top level teams in other regions/across the nation.  I could very well be wrong about Highland and Hockessin and they both could be very strong teams.  However, I would have rather be seeded in a group with FC Penn, Mt Laurel, or Charlotte.  If our group is indeed weaker than the other groups, we will undoubted run into some of the big dawgs on Sunday morning.  I can't wait!