VFW

Dear Force Parents,

Our boys played a great game last night as the workouts with Jason are starting to show. The defense is getting better, we are moving our feet getting in front of our man and talking out loud. Even though the margin of victory was close 37-33 they made three 3-pointers that were pretty lucky and two breakdown layups so in all the difference should have been a 17 point win.

We hope as parents you have noticed in these games that our team actually runs offensive plays, most SEYO teams do not. We have many of them for both man and zone, we are working with the boys so that they recognize these as they are playing so they can adjust and find the mismatches or open player for an easy basket. Remembering that some of these plays are very advanced and that we need to be sure that all 10 players know them shows how we are a better team when it comes to tournament time.

The biggest thing that we are trying to show our boys is that we don't want anyone of them to be stuck in one position, we want them all to be able to play multiple positions so that it makes playing defense against us much more difficult. You might have seen that as Shaq and Sunny are on the wing in some plays, Reed and Trevor moving to the post and Christian to the point. There are other changes we have been making with all our boys and the best thing is all of them keep asking questions which will make them better players.

Practice is at 5:30-7:00 p.m. at Marina HS this Saturday.

Thanks,

Mark

Dear Force Parents,

Our boys played a better controled game this past weekend as we worked in practice on our zone offense trying to utilize our high and low post players a little more. We are working hard on this as we hear most Northern California teams play zone defense so we need to be ready on our execution side.

Jason confirmed we are on for this Friday night at 9:00 p.m. if you can make it. We have had Jason or KB work with the boys that come out on defense, rebounding and boxing out. His method on teaching our boys about angles of defense, when to play up and when to play back, help defense, talking on defense, etc. have all helped our team each week on Sunday.

Our Saturday practice 2/2 will be at Marina HS in Huntington Beach from 5:30-7:00 p.m.

Please note we are practicing at Marina HS in HB not Mariners in CM

Please let us know if you cannot make practice,

Thanks,

Mark 

Dear Force Parents,

We received the application for the Hollywood Dodgers Tournament. The dates will be August 16 and 17 in Las Vegas. I'm assuming everyone will be attending this tournament, please let me know by the end of the week if you are not going as we need to send in our application as soon as possible. 

Tracie has inquired about the South Point Hotel already and has booked reservations with a weekday rate of $80 and weekend rate of $140, remember this hotel will fill up quick. We will look for other options but we are holding this hotel for now.

Here is the information regarding our FORCE fund as of 1/31/08:

$400 - rebate on our VFW uniforms

$200 - remaining donation money from Scotty and Tracie

$265 - VFW Tournament 50% rebate over $700

$300 - JW clinic proceeds put on by Jon and Mark

Total amount of $1,165

We will be paying our entry fee to SASF Tournament of $350 and entry fee to the Hollywood Dodgers Tournament of $500 out of our fund. We will be using the remainder of the money for a team bonding event in Las Vegas this year.

Let me know if you have any questions, thanks.

Mark

Dear Force Parents,

Another practice time change, VFW has lost two courts at Marina HS for tomorrow so all the teams were moved around at Valencia HS again.

We changed our schedule to try and accomodate as many as possible and we apologize for the last minute change but we were just notified at 5:30 p.m. on Friday afternoon.

OUR NEW PRACTICE TIME FOR TOMORROW 1/26/08 IS  1:30-3:00 P.M. AT VALENCIA HS LARGE GYM, SOUTH COURT.

We tried to schedule it so Ishino's, Treinen's and Lee's are at the gym from 1:30-4:30, Morinishi's are at the gym from 12:00-3:00 and Coach Scotty can make it from SCCCC finishing at 1:00 p.m., hope Austin can make it before his 5:00 p.m. game but not sure what time Brad's testing is over in the South Bay (sorry Yumi).

Let me know if you have any questions, thanks.

Mark

Dear Force Parents,

As we are preparing for our tournament schedule after SEYO please let us know if you have any conflicts in the month of March. As soon as SEYO and NJB are over we plan on working our team three days a week for the three weeks before our Sacramento SASF Tournament. We learned when we went to San Francisco that we had not practiced certain things that could have helped us in the one game that we lost. As we are preparing to play in the 6th grade we need to be ready for anything.

We also wanted to let you know that one of the better tournaments in Northern California has dropped their first year teams to the 6th grade next year so we will be grade appropriate.

http://www.sjninja.org/index.html

Our goal is to play in the best Asian Tournaments in California so we may only play FOR, Tigers and VFW down here and three or four tournaments in Northern California in the near future. We will also be looking to practice twice or three times a week during tournament season. Jason, KB, Coach Kanemura, etc. will be working with our boys on a regular basis and so we will need the additional practice time for our normal plays, etc.

We will secure gym times for March soon so please let us know if you have any conflicts.

Thanks,

Mark