Prepping for Arizona
Thursday, January 17, 2008 at 07:20PM 
Tomorrow we're off to sunny Phoenix (AZ) for the Sereno Soccer Classic. I'm really looking forward to the event and seeing the girls really compete in a realatively high level event for the first time since last July.
The tournament is set up kinda weird with 18 teams in 6 groups of 3. We'll come up against the CISCO Black Cobras (AZ) and the Colorado Rush Nike (CO) girls in group play, then our last two games of a 4-game guarantee will be dependant on our group finish. I'm confident that we'll handle CISCO based on what I know about the Arizona soccer scene, and I'm sure Colorado will be a very difficult opponent. My hope is that we make it out of group play as the group leader so that we meet up with the Dallas Sting girls, a team I know will provide a stern test for us. I would also like a chance to match up against the Sereno White team as I'm fairly sure they'll be one of the top teams, if not the top team here.
We were absolutely horrible in our first outing last year as u13s in Virginia. We couldn't settle in and play and our performance didn't do much to give me any indication of what we really needed to work on as I knew the girls could perform better. My hope this year is that the girls will come to play. I'm not interested in the results though I'm competitive enough to want to win every game. I guess interested in the wrong word. I'm not focused on the results. Rather, I'm looking ahead to State Cup, Regionals, and maybe even a Nationals. Arizona, St Cloud (friendlies in Mar), Vegas in late March, and MRL weekends in April are all about prepping for our national run. I want the girls to play up to their collective ability in order to best gauge what we need work on and what areas we excel at at this point. If the girls do not perform to a level I know they can, it becomes more difficult to get an accurate measurement of where we are at.
Clare and Lily will not be making the trip with us, though both will come to Vegas. I asked Chilly (Eden Prairie U15 Premier team) to join us as she is a skilled player who plays up here in MN. We'll travel with 16 and see what happens.
