West Des Moines Premier Games

After five and a half months of training we are set to get outside and play some games again!  The WDM Premier Games has been one of my favorite events to attend over the past two years.  The fields are great, the kids love the hotel we stay at, The WDM Sheraton, and the competition keeps getting better and better each year.  Or maybe it is one of my favorites because it is the first tournament of the spring for our Academy teams.  We will have our U11 Blue, U12, U13 and U14 White teams in the tournament this weekend.

Last year we tied for first in our group finishing with 2 wins and 1 loss.  Both the KC Legends and the Toro Bulldogs had the same record and we lost out on the tie breaker to KC who went on to win the tournament. 

Roster notes:  We will be missing Magic who tore her ACL for this tournament and the season.  Tragic for this to happen to any player.  We are also missing Sonic who is recovering from a knee injury.  We will be adding Millie who plays with our U14 team for this event and Lydia S who plays with Kelix.

Schedule:
We are seeded third in our group so if the seedings are correct we should have our toughest two games on Saturday, but after the long winter it is tough to say which teams will be where with so few games over the last couple of months.

Game #1 vs KC Legends
The reason we lost out on the tie breakers last year was the fact that KC put a 7-2 beat down on us.  They must have hammered in 5 goals from long distance.  Last year we struggled with giving up too many wide open shots from distance because our mids and defenders would drop deep in our box, so we will see if we have improved on that this year. 
This was also a game where once we got down a couple of goals we gave up and it may have cost us a chance to advance.  If we could have kept it close we would have had a shot to advance.  Would of, should have, could have . . . Hopefully after the NSR Tournament this past fall where we advanced on tie breakers we will realize how important it is to keep everything close.  This will also be a fun game to see how both teams have progressed from last year.

Game #2 vs Lake Forest Utd #39 Nation and #11 RII
I haven't seen this team before but we are looking forward to a good game since they are the top seed in our bracket.

Game #3 vs VSA Visions (IA)
I don't know very much about this team but it should be a good game on Sunday morning.

Another cool thing about this tournament is that if we make it to the Final we will get to play on the Stadium Field at Cownie Complex.  I'm sure the girls will be excited about that.