SGV Pistons Thrill Soccer Fans at the 2007 Bakersfield (BOWS) Tournament

First off, huge thanks to players who joined us at the last moment to ensure our participation at this Presidents' Day weekend tournament. Thanks for attending the team meeting a couple of days ahead of the tournament. This no doubt allowed us some measure of team cohesiveness without telegraphing our intent to opposition by being overly verbally expressive.

Kelly, Karen, Kristin, Randi, and Erin, the energy that you brought to the team made us highly productive and I sincerely appreciate your participation.

* Note - If this report reads too good to be true, see SGV Pistons on YouTube to believe how good these ladies really are!

Our first game, against Diva Destroyers from Fresno, ended 4-0 in our favor with a couple of goals in each half. The opposition turned the ball over quite a bit and we finally got our first goal in the 10^th minute when Natalie pounced on a mishandled ball. Just before the end of the first half, Kim found Sarah T for our 2^nd goal, a true beauty of a goal with Sarah T smashing home Kim’s well-targeted blast across the face of the goal.

The 2^nd half revealed the striking ability of Erin who had provided able support on our defence. She moved up as one of our two strikers and nailed two goals in the 4^th and 5^th minutes.

The grass practically grew a few inches in our half of the field as about every minute of the game was played in the opposition’s half. Kristin took over for Randi in goal and the pent-up energy was let loose as Randi rattled the crossbar on a breakaway.

The second game wasn’t much different in the caliber of the opposition. SGV Pistons players were aware that a lot of chances were not properly addressed in the first game and we got a bit better coordinated in our ball distribution and play designs against home town team, FootLoose.

Like in the first game, we didn’t get our first goal until the 10^th minute when leftie Hannah volleyed one in off her RIGHT foot! Possibly the goal of the day was in the 21^st minute when Sarah T beautifully dummied out of the way for Kim to blast a shot in from outside the box. We took this one 7-0.

Our final game of the day was against San Jose Shots, a group of speedy youngsters with powerful shots.

There were no goals in the first half as our team worked extra hard to contain them. We scored in the 4^th minute of resumption when their defense buckled under severe pressure and blasted in an own goal.

They tied it up on a long range air ball to put us in 2^nd place in our bracket for the preliminary rounds. They had defeated our other opponents by one more goal than we had.

Dinner was at Benji’s, recommended by one of the tournament organizers. The players surprised me with a gift card from Pro Soccer. Big thanks, guys!

Day 2

As 2^nd place team, we were up against the third place team in the other bracket, Just 4 Kicks. This was for a spot in the semis. Loser goes home. SoccerAware.com report on the 2006 tournament shows that we met this team on Day 2 and beat them 3-0. Their record in the other bracket this year gave me no serious concern as they had tied a couple and lost one. To my utter and unveiled dismay, we couldn’t get one past them all through the 50 minutes of regulation in spite of the tons of chances. As a matter of fact, three minutes before expiration of game, scary moment when they hit our woodwork from long range! Just like that, we could've been done...tournament over. We moved Erin forward and, in injury time, she bailed us out 1-0. Phew!

In the semi-final, we played PSV, the team that knocked us out on PKs in the semi the previous year. Four minutes into the game, Laura set Renee up with a beautiful assist as the latter blasted a left-footer in from just inside the box. Our defence did a grand job protecting our lead as on a couple of occasions, Sherisse and Renee’s speed came through for us. The one time PSV beat our defence, Randi was there to make a deflection save. All on video, guys! No further developments in the second half, and we were through to the championship game for a chance to take on San Jose Shots again. We had bettered our 2006 outing!

San Jose Shots played challenging soccer as usual. The youngsters were full of energy but our skills and play pattern contained them easily.

In the 8^th minute of the opening half, Natalie’s timely release found Sarah T who got ahead of her marker to smash home our championship goal. And for the first time in the history of our adult soccer program, we’d gone all the way. Of no less significance is that we did it with the least number of players ever. We went into the tournament with a roster of 16, lost a player to illness the morning of the tournament and another one to work schedule on Day 2.

Our victory is made even more significant on account of the fact that a full third of our roster was new to our program. My appreciation to Randi in goal, Erin, Kristin, and Karen on defence, and Kelly on offense. Our regular players came through as always. The speedy sisters, Sherisse and Renee, Laura, and Paige secured our defence; Amanda, Keji, Kim, and Hannah worked overtime in the midfield and provided opportunities to our attacking force comprising Natalie and Sarah T. Great job, ladies. I’m proud of your efforts. I also salute the efforts of Geoff, on camera for us, and Ola, our statistician. Great job, guys!

My greatest appreciation to God for prayers answered for our players' safety. For the first time, and even though we played some scrappy teams, we returned home with no significant injury unlike in earlier tournaments. Thank you, Jesus!