VFW

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