VFW

We just want to thank everyone for a job well done this past weekend. The tournament was a success due to all the parents and players who worked together to show what can happen when a team pulls together as one. We had a great day Saturday with two good games. Both victories against the San Fernando Dragons and Jets Wild Force. Our Sunday Championship game started a little slow trailing 6-13 at halftime. After waking them up during halftime we outscored the Bruins 25-7 in the second half to a 31-20 victory. Well, our first official tournament season has come to an end. It was a very successful one for being our first year together with Jon, Scotty and I coaching. We played in 7 tournaments with a record of 17-4, one loss in overtime and one on a three point shot with less than a minute to play. We took 4 Championships West LA, Tigers, Bruins and VFW with 3 second place finishes FOR, Jets and Dodgers. We should be very proud of our boys and all the hard work they do, we are very lucky to have them together as a team. This is just a reminder for this weekend the 28th that we will have a special practice at Kennedy HS in Granada Hills with Coach Kevin Kanemura. We will have two pick-up and drop off locations. Jon will be driving from his house Jordan, Sunny, Troy and Kenny. I will be driving from my house Reed, Sammy, Shaq and Trevor. We still need to confirm with Brad and Christian will be in the Valley already so he'll meet us there. Please have the boys bring their tournament bags for this, pack water, extra socks, T-shirt, towel. We will be video taping and will make copies for anyone interested in watching the practice. Thanks again for everything, Mark

We're coming down the home stretch for the tournament this weekend. Just a few reminders for everyone: For our first game against the Dragons please arrive at the gym at 10:00 a.m., our game is at 11:00 a.m. but both Jon and I will be commissioning games so we will need to have someone replace one of us to prepare the team. Be sure they wear their red uniforms and bring their tournament bags. REMEMBER WATER ONLY IN THE GYM AND NO GUM TOO For our second game at 5:00 p.m. against the Jets we need to have the boys arrive at 4:00 p.m. and the same itinerary as the first game. If you have both parents coming to the first game try and get one of you to come at 10:00 a.m. so that the boys can get as much rest as possible. It will be a long day for most of them. Sunday's schedule I will go over after Saturday's games. Hope everyone gets some rest before this weekend, see you then. Mark

This is just a reminder that we have our last two practices before the tournament tonight at Mariners from 6:30-8:30 p.m. and tomorrow afternoon at Valencia HS from 4:30-6:00 p.m. We are also planning our trip to the Valley on the 28th of October from 12:00-2:00 p.m. We need to try and have all of our players attend. Jon and I are willing to drive any of the boys if the parents cannot make the trip. We are very lucky that Coach Kevin Kanemura and his staff are willing to evaluate our team and then provide us with the proper half court and full court trap defense that suits our talents. They will also provide us with a press break too. I have known Coach Kevin for several years and have gone to Japan with him with the Yonsei 11 team. He has learned from the best college coaches as well as sharing knowledge with L.A.'s best high school coaches like Harvey Kitani of Fairfax HS We will be video taping the entire practice and will try to have two cameras set-up to be sure we catch everything. Kennedy HS is one of the nicest gyms that I've seen and I've seen a lot of gyms. Coach Kevin will not be charging us anything for this day so I think we should have all the boys participate in this great opportunity. Please remember to provide your boys with "water only" in the gyms. Let us know if you cannot make either practice. Mark

We are confirmed for practice this Friday at Mariners from 6:30-8:30 p.m. We also will be having practice at Valencia HS on Saturday but will have to confirm with VFW. We will let you know in the next day or two. In regards to questions on "water" only for the boys. We will be entering this SEYO season with a very strict "water only" and "no gum" policy. We should start teaching our boys early to drink "water only" as it will help them in the long run. Also, the SCCCC has a "water only" policy that we will have to enforce too. In the Jetts Tournament this past year there was a situation where a bottle of red gatorade was spilled in the gym at Rio Hondo College. The gatorade actually stained the floor even though it was cleaned up immediately. Lucky for the Jetts organization that the floor was to be refinished the next week or it would have cost about $3,500 to have the entire floor cleaned. Something to know about in case you see it happen. Let us know if you will not be able to make practice this weekend. Mark

We know that we haven't even finished our VFW Tournament which is two weeks away but we are always way ahead in trying to prepare this team for the next level. As most of you are aware the start of the SEYO season will be the first week in December, we will probably start practicing at the beginning of November. There are some decisions that we had to make and we wanted to be sure that everyone knew our thought process. In regards to playing up in Lower Midgets (5th grade) we believe that this would not benefit our boys at this time. In fact,it is the first year where the full court press is implemented. We are going to be learning a whole new half and full court press as well as a press break and need an entire season to work out the bugs. We will need to be ready for this as we enter the 2007 tournament season next year. The other reason is that there is a SEYO rule that players may only play up one age group/grade and we have two players that would be two age groups higher and we are not willing to sacrifice that. If in the future we feel that we can compete with older players than we will request a waiver from SEYO as a team to do so. We are also actively pursuing being invited to a Northen California tournament as our second travel tournament next year. It is a very political process in the sense that 4th grade teams are rarely invited due to the lack of commitment and level of play in this age group. The Northern Tournaments only want to invite the best teams from So. California to play in their tournaments. The usual starting age for travel teams is the 5th grade. We hope to be considered one of the best teams in So. Cal by then. Just thought you all should know this, don't forget practice time was changed today to 5:30-7:00 p.m. Mark