Falling off the Championship Throne-

Well it finally happened! We lost :( the championship game to those "B H's" (Black Hearts)ha ha...we had a lot of shots on goal but couldn't seem to score. The final score was 1-3.
Move over "B H's Tsumani is going to plow over you!!!

How to bounce back from surgery without looking like you are trying

The Spoiler disabled list exploded this summer as injuries and maladies screamed for surgical attention. In typical form, Suzanne scores highest on “how to bounce back after surgery.” Putting in both the first and last goals of the first game in Sunday’s double header, Suzanne showed that she still has that touch. Her first goal came early in the first half. Suzanne’s second goal came with seconds left in the second half. Arlene’s cross landed perfectly on Laura’s foot. Laura deflected it goal-ward and Suzanne was right there to drive it into the net.

Short or fully staffed—it seemed not to matter for 909 United. We scored twice during the first half when they had as few as eight players, and twice during the second half, when they had a full team. Tsunami enjoyed the luxury of one sub. The second goal of the first half came from a pop fly above the goal. Like a volleyball spiker, Leslie leaped above the crowd and slammed the ball into the net with her head.

909 United did make more threats during the second half, keeping Diane slightly busier in the goal than Patti had been during the first half. Every time they tried to put something together, Cara or Jenna would break it up, or Brittney would steal it or Be would force it out of bounds. Two 909 solo artists tried to run the ball through alone, but of course neither could get by Staci.

Is Patti tired of playing goalie? She made her mark on the offense by scoring early in the second half. She shot from the left side (possibly with her left foot) and popped the ball right into the net.

Powerful winds swept the field, blowing any player chatter and many of the whistles into the parking lot. It made the game seem farther away than usual. Soon Grand Avenue Park’s trees will lose their leaves and game nights will be school nights. Enjoy the last weekends of the summer.

two hat tricks

Amy and Rachel got started early in Sunday's meeting with ER Bound. By ten minutes into the game, they had each already scored a goal. Yours truly arrived just as Amy closed in on a near miss, one on one with ERB's goalie, but shooting wide.

ER Bound's players were more prone than ever to giving the appearance of living up to their name this week. With few exceptions (namely the player named Breeze), they could be felled by a strong breeze, and several spent much to much time whining for calls. Nonetheless, they stayed in the game as a team, striving for chances to score.

Amy and Rachel strove harder though. Amy found the net again in the middle of the first half, and Rachel took a corner kick that Suzanne would have been proud of--arcing the ball over the defenders and on target for the goal. One defender got a hair on it, then it skipped along the ERB goalie's fingers and into the net. Amy followed that with another goal--why use a whole game to get a hat trick if it can be accomplished in a single half?

During the second half, Tsunami mixed it up a bit. Although such mixing up is often an act of mercy, no ERB player felt relief to find she was now facing Staci or Cara on the forward line. Staci wasted no time. On the second possession of the half, she dribbled down the right side and launched a perfect ball over the goalie's head and into the upper right corner of the net. Minutes later, Cara followed with a similar shot.

With the score at 7-0, ERB became a momentary frenzy of offense. They were all hustle for a few minutes, and Patti finally got to touch the ball as the got off a few shots: shots on goal, but none in the goal. As the second half wound down, Rachel executed a needle-threading run on ERB's net, scoring the eighth and final goal of the game and putting the feather in the cap--second hat trick of the game, which ended at 8-0.

Tsunami with two hat tricks:

Season kick-off summer 2011

Tsunami 17 July 2011
The power of ten returned to Grand Avenue Park for the first game of the summer 2011 season. The Tsunami ten faced Gang Green's eleven plus a sub, running uphill during the first half and downhill during the second.

Tsunami dominated possession during the first half, and created many opportunities. During the first twenty minutes, Tsunami gave the GG goalie several scares, but she lucked out as shots sailed over the bar and wide. Once calibrated, however, Tsunami's scoring apparatus capitalized on the opportunities created.

Suzanne set up the first goal with a pass leading Amy to the goal. When she got there, Amy found the GG goalie: the ball got sandwiched between Amy's foot and the goalie's foot. Amy's momentum prevailed, carrying her down to the ground but propelling the ball over the goalie's foot and into the net.

Amy had established an m.o. (for the half at least). A few minutes later, Laura took the ball in to the goal, but was challenged by both the goalie and a defender, who sent her down. She executed a perfect roll, and at the same time the ball rolled into the net. It looked like it just went there all by itself--a birthday present for Laura.

The half ended 2-0 Tsunami. The second half gave Tsunami the downhill run, but GG returned to the field determined to score, and retained possession much more than in the first half. Half-way through the half, Suzanne left, reducing the power of ten to the dangerous nine. Just before leaving, however, Suzanne sent a fly ball from the half line towards the goal. The goalie let it bounce, then failed to grab it, bobbling it over her head. Amy had followed the shot--there she was to head it in right out of the goalie's hands.

With a two-woman advantage and a three-goal deficit, GG got busy assaulting the Tsunami goal. The defense was ready of course, and Leslie, B., Cara, Rachel, Pam, and Jenna stayed on the ball and made it hard for GG to shoot. But since we were outnumbered, GG had an advantage to exploit, and got off a number of strong shots on goal. Patti was a vacuum cleaner, sucking every ball into her arms. Empty net! Empty all the way. GG's last shot was from just inside the left corner of the field. It crossed in front of the goal, programmed to curve into the far side net. The ball danced across Patti's fingers...finally she snatched it. Empty net all the way to a 3-0 victory.

ghu

Tso long TSammi

Wrap up

Champions play like champions and walk away with the shirts

Sunday night brought crowds (relatively speaking) to Grand Avenue Park to watch Tsunami defend its title against a 909 squad augmented by speed and height.

Both teams got going early. Suzanne delivered for Tsunami, then 909's giant launched a stunning shot from the half line that caught Sammi by surprise and made the score 1-1 where it stuck for many minutes. The teams were not quite evenly matched--Tsunami had the edge on possession, but both teams had strong defenders that thwarted shots and kept the score stuck through halftime.

Early in the second half 909 exploited a breakaway, and one of their players was on a tear towards our goal and ahead of our defense. Sammi challenged, coming out with an expert slide into the ball. Unfortunately it popped up and our defenders did not win in the ensuing scrum: 2-1 909 United. The score was stuck again. Lindsey arrived soon after, and added just the right pizzazz to Tsunami's offense. We were energized, and took many great runs at the 909 goal. Lots of runs down the side followed by crosses and shots....but not goals.

Tsunami persisted, and finally Rachel completed one of these sequences to bring the score back to a tie. Very soon thereafter, Suzanne made a text book shot into the upper left corner of the goal, elevating us to a winning position. Tenacious defense protected our lead and brought the title home to Tsunami once again.

We like winning, but this one was especially sweet as a sendoff to Sammi, who we are going to miss so much. She has kept the balls out of our net:

A net is but string on a pole

'Til balls enter in for a goal

But Sammi--she stops 'em

She flies, dives and blocks them.

Without Sammi the team has a hole.

With Sammi we sat so prettily;

We cast off our basic humility.

Now we'll be humbled

With her off to Humboldt .

Our net just may lose its virginity.

Semi final wrap up

I did some research, and suspect that it was the chilly air that made those Blackhearts so disorderly Sunday night.* Shoving Staci, leg wrestling Cara, whining to extreme--one player "threatened" to stop playing if the officials kept calling her for infractions. After the last, the ref on the line turned to the spectators, lifted his palms and mouthed "so stop playing."

In contrast, Tsunami displayed order. Passing to feet, lofting lovely crossed balls in front of the goal, talking to each other.... It was a beautiful game to watch. Tsunami had a full team plus a sub to Blackhearts ten, but the numerical advantage looked to be much greater. Tsunami had possession at least 80 percent of the game. When a Blackheart did get the ball, she most often just kicked towards our goal, but with little awareness of where her teammates stood in relation to the goal or the ball.

Early in the first half Suzanne crossed a ball in front of the net, finding Diane in perfect position to tap it in. A few minutes later there was a near repeat, with Suzanne crossing a ball to Diane's head. That one went high, unfortunately. Shortly before the end of the half, Suzanne launched a classic arrow from about 30 yards out into the upper left corner of the net.

Blackheart whining reached its peak as the half drew to a close. They came out for the second half a little less disorderly and a bit more dejected. Whereas Sammi had a chance to show off at least one great stop during the first half in the goal, Leslie had to be content with dancing and prancing to stay warm in the goal during the second half. Blackhearts focused on defense during the second half--while making no serious offensive threats, they did manage to thwart Tsunami attacks. Most of the time. Amy got by their defenders to score once in the second half.

Onward to the finals! Tsunami!

*Here's some scientific trivia for you: "Internal blackening, or 'blackheart' is an important physiological disorder of pineapples that arises as a result of storage at chilling temperatures."

*http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/905832/discoloration_in_raw_and_processed_fruits_and_vegetables/index.html

PX90 or P90X Taking on those young Corona Strikers.

We won 3 to 1 and we were the only teams playing at 8:15 p.m. the ground was hard and dusty. Had a lot of players falling and sliding on the dirt. Pam hope you are okay. Thanks for those who showed up we had on sub and it was great! Thanks to our fans that watched us play.

We start playoffs in 2 weeks at 8:15 (vs. the 4th place Blackhearts). As Laura put it; can't wait to hear about the PX90 from Leslie.

Go Tsunami! BTW--The new Red jersey's are really flashy and cool we've been receiving a lot of great compliments.

Thanks again to JOEY MONACO -Owner of Red Devil Pizza in La Verne Calif for sponsoring our team. Check out the bottom of the page to see his logo.

Also, thank you to Brian at Soccer Garage for getting our jerseys to us so fast he did a great job designing them.

teenagers in black

Tender green shoots of grass carpet the Chino hills. Sheep and cattle feast. Meanwhile, on the patched-up turf of Grand Avenue Park, a team of tender teens in black jerseys emerge from AYSO to play in the adult league. Tsunami enjoys age diversity, but even our youngsters in their 20s and 30 might fear the youth of the Corona Strikers. Not to worry—the newest team in our division may also be the second nicest team (Tsunami being the nicest). The girls from Corona had skills and showed no interest in throwing elbows, hip checking or ankle thrashing. They were surprisingly short on stamina for 18 year olds; that may have evened out the game for Tsunami, which dominated possession during the second half.

The first half saw Corona Strikers living up to their name, and keeping the defense and Sammi very busy. The had many shots; we had many close calls. Between Sammi’s keeping prowess and one or two miracles, we limited them to a single goal midway through the first half. They earned that goal: after several blocked shots and a flurry of activity, one of their players finally found the net with a rebound.

Tsunami never surrendered the half, but kept striving to get the ball into striking range. Suzanne’s range extends nearly to the half line, and she had several strong shots from a variety of spots on the field. Most were on goal, but were caught by their goalie. Very late in the half we had a chaotic rally and their goalie’s mitts seemed suddenly less sticky. Pattie managed to head a swatted ball over the goalie’s hands. It rebounded off the crossbar and Leslie speared it with her head and zoomed it into the net. Leslie in front of their net? WTF? She was sweeping! Cara and Leslie communicated superbly, allowing Leslie to have several foray’s into offense with no lack of defensive coverage.

The first half ended in a 1-1 tie, and Tsunami dominated possession during the scoreless second half as exhaustion seeped into legs on both teams. Tsunami never let up. Our newest player, Samantha, fit in like she’d played with us for a Corona Striker’s lifetime (some of us have been on this team almost that long!). And all that with only 10 players!! I’m sure we’ll have subs next week.

One cold and foggy night ~

As usual it was windy and cold. Thanks to our fans that showed up Steve, Mary, Suzanne's husband, Staci's soon to be husband & sorry I forget what is your doggie's name, and Patti's daughter, did I miss anyone? Liked to always recognize our trusty Tsunami fans.

Yes it was freaky playing in the fog, hey what was the final score? It is nice to have sub's it was a nice win.

And lastly, thank you to Cara for joining our team welcome. Very excited to have few newbie's go Tsunami!