VFW

We have completed our first year of tournament play with 6 tournaments in 6 months. We started this team with our new philosophy on March 1, 2006 and will be completing our 6th month at the end of August 2006. Congratulations to the boys for taking the Championship in the Pasadena Bruins Tournament this weekend. We had three good games starting with an unusual game plan by the Raptors, the result was a 19-11 victory. In the second game our strategy was to run to wear down their starters. We were successful in a 35-17 victory over the Pasadena Bruins. In the final game of the tournament we needed a victory to take the championship, the game was close all the way and we need to practice our press break a little more. The result was a 29-27 victory over the San Fernando Dragons. In our 6 tournaments this year we finished with a 14-4 record. 3 Championship Trophies and 3 Second Place finishes. In our 4 loses, 3 were against the Warriors and 1 against the Victory. We will get a chance to beat these same teams in the future. Our free throw shooting is getting there, we shot 15/25 or 60% for the tournament. We are on track for our goal of 70% within the first year as a team. I would also like to personally thank all of you for the wonderful Cleveland driver and for the great lunch at the Yard House restaurant for my birthday, thank you also for allowing our family to be a part of yours as Reed has become so happy with all of your boys and with Coach Jon and Coach Scotty. Thank you again for everything. We will be taking a break for the next few weeks to allow all of us to regroup for the start of the school year, unwind a little bit and rest us parents. Please continue to check the website as we will announce the schedule as soon as we coordinate the gyms. Our first VFW Tournament practice will probably be on the weekend of 9/16 and 9/17. We will be posting Jason's clinic schedule for those of you that have the time to attend. I did mention to all the boys that even though we are not practicing as a team they all must practice basketball on their own for the next 3 weeks. Thanks again, Mark

This is a reminder that we have our last practice for the Bruins Tournament tomorrow night Wed. 8/23 at Mariners from 6:30-8:30 p.m. We will be making our final adjustments for the teams we will be playing so please try to make this practice. Let Jon or I know if you will not be there. We also need to get an idea on how many ads we will have before the end of the month. Please ask Caroline if you have any questions. We will ask her if she can collect all the ads for the team this year. Remember these ads will help keep our costs down for next years tournament schedule. Our first Bruin game will be at 8:00 p.m. on Friday, we are asking that you try to be at the gym around 7:00 p.m. in case you hit traffic. Estimated time will vary for each family. Those coming from Cerritos area can probably leave around 5:45 p.m. and head up the 605 freeway carpool lane to the 210 freeway carpool lane. Those in Tustin will have to leave a little earlier 5:30 p.m. and can go up the 57 freeway carpool to the 210 freeway carpool. See you tomorrow night, Mark

Remember we have our last Pasadena Bruins practice this Wed. 8/23/06 at Mariners from 6:30-8:30 p.m. We will need to go over a few things before out Tournament this Friday. Our first game will be on Friday 8/25/06 at 8:00 p.m. in La Canada, be sure to try and be there around 7:00 p.m. I will get some estimated times to the gym before our practice this week. We will also have two games on Saturday 8/26/06 but will not have any games on Sunday. Remember, All VFW Tournament ads are due at the end of August. We will be using our money to help pay for our tournaments next year just like the Dodgers Tournament this year. Our goal is to travel twice next year with 5th grade being the first year that we can play in all the Northern California Tournaments. Please try and collect some ads to help with our costs for next year. We will send out more information this week regarding the tournament. Mark

We hope everyone had a great time in Las Vegas this past weekend. I want to thank Tracie Kawaguchi for setting us up at the very nice "South Coast" Hotel. The boys after their slow start in the first game played extremely well in the last two games of the tournament. The 21-24 lost to the Warriors was another tough loss after Brad made that "3" pointer to tie the game, the best game was the win over the new Mustangs Ninja Storm with their addition of the players from the Saber Bulldogs. Again, my heart can't take these games but we came away with a 27-25 win to secure a tie for second place in the tournament. The boys had a great time in the pool, hanging out in the buffet and just hanging out between games. We even had a few of them go bowling after the tournament was over. Remember, there is no practice on Wed and Friday this week as we all need to recover from this past weekends games. We will have practice this Sunday 8/20/06 from 6:00-8:00 at Mariners and also on Wed. 8/23/06 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Mariners. The Pasadena Bruins Tournament will have a game on Friday 8/25/06 at 8:00 p.m. against the Jets, we will then have two games on Saturday 8/26 and no games on Sunday When we get the official schedule then we will let everyone know. We would like to say "congratulations" to Trevor and his team for taking 9th place in Florida this past week. They were able to place in the top "10" out of over 50 teams competing in their age group. We want to wish Brad a very safe trip to Japan over the next few weeks and want to welcome Kenny back from his vacation in Hawaii. See you on Sunday, Mark