VFW

Dear Force Parents, Well, another exciting weekend by our team. Three great games starting off with a victory over the SEYO Champions OCO on Friday night. After trailing at halftime 15-16 we came to play defense in the second half holding OCO to only 2 points in a dramatic 25-18 win. In our second game we faced the second place team from CYC with a 7-3 regular season record, the Mustangs Ninja Storm. In another tough battle our defense again had to come through with two great stops in the last 25 seconds of the game for a 18-17 victory. The Championship Game was against our newest challenge the FOR Ikaika Warriors. Our team came out a little nervous but played hard, we trailed at halftime 7-17. The second half was a different story as we ran and played extremely hard together as a team. The result was a 20-34 defeat but we played them pretty even in the second half 13-17. We missed 8 free throws and several lay-ups in this game, it could have been another wild finish. So we ended up in second place in this years FOR Tournament, not bad for a team that is suppose to peak in August later this year. We're 5-1 in the last two tournaments playing in the Gold Division and have beaten the SEYO (9-1) OCO Champions, the (10-0) CBO Champions, the Warriors, the second place (8-2) FOR Victory, the second place (7-3) CYC Mustangs Ninja Storm as well as Norwalk the VFW 2005 Silver Division Champions. We will need to do plenty of work before the Tigers tournament on Memorial Weekend. We are getting better at getting to the free throw line. In the WLA tournament we shot as a team 8 for 19 which was 42% and in the FOR Tournament we shot 17 for 36 which improved to 47% from the line. Our goal is to be 55% at the next Tigers Tournament but to be at 70% by the Dodgers tournament in Las Vegas in August 2006. Thanks again to all the Force Parents for being so supportive to our team, we couldn't have done it without you. I will be sending out the practice schedule for this week by Tuesday. We will only practice one day this week (Friday or Saturday) due to Mothers Day on Sunday 5/14/06. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns from the past two tournaments or for anything else that may be happening. Talk to you all soon, Coach Mark

Hello All, Congrats to the boys! At least the practices are paying off. Jon FYI from Mark. Hi Force Parents, Wasn't this one of the most exciting basketball tournaments you've seen !!!! I wanted to say "CONGRATULATIONS" to all the boys for a tremendous weekend. I think they played very well together and learned plenty of lessons in our first tournament this year. They all deserve to be the "CHAMPIONS" of this years WLA Tournament. Please let me know if your son had any comments good or bad from this tournament. I'm trying to continue to build the team concept with increasing their self confidence on a daily basis. Any information would help me plan for the future. We will be having practice this Friday 4/28/06 at Mariners from 6:30-8:30 p.m. We will also be having practice on Sunday 4/30/06 but the time and location is still unknown. We were going to practice in the Valley but I think we need to concentrate on the OCO game a week from Friday. I will let everyone know about Sunday later this week. Have a great week and look forward to hearing about our boys comments. Thanks, Coach Mark

Dear Force Parents, As we are always preparing for the future I wanted to let everyone know the status for this summer. We are scheduled to play in the Dodgers tournament in August, due to Kenny being in Hawaii we are asking another player to take his place for this tournament. His name is Sammy Duarte, he played for the Tigers organization a year ago. His mother Debbie played for the VFW organization, his sister Jessica plays with my Kelli on her AAU team. The parents are Tim and Debbie Duarte, he has a brother Thomas in the 5th grade and sister Jessica in the 7th grade. They live in Fullerton. I've asked him to come out and practice with us to prepare for the summer. He will not be playing with us in the FOR and Tigers tournaments, as those rosters are already sent in. When you see him please give him a warm "Force" welcome. Thanks, Mark

Dear Force Parents, As we near our first tournament this year I wanted to thank all the parents for the continuous support in bringing your child to all the practices, clinics, etc. We are only in our sixth week with a new coach, new system, new offense and a new defense. The boys continue to improve each week and we continue to practice those free throws, it is the most important thing that we must improve as a team by the Las Vegas Tournament in August 2006. I ask all of you to please be supportive in positive ways with your child. We are trying to get everyone on this team to believe and trust one another, be positive, cheer for each other and be supportive at all times. If we can accomplish this in the next three months we will be very hard to beat. Getting to motivate each child must be handled differently with each one of them. When we accomplish this then we will have attained one of the most difficult jobs as a coach, which is to get the maximum out of each player every minute of every game. Let's practice hard and play together, GO FORCE !!!!! Coach Mark