VFW

Oops, I forgot to mention that we play the Jets Wild Force on Saturday at 10:00 a.m. in the large gym at Mark Keppel HS. If we win we will play the winner of the FOR Victory and Venice Wizards. The other bracket will have the Pasadena Gameboys vs. San Fernando Dragons and Mustang Lightning vs. Ballaholics See everyone tomorrow night, Mark

Dear Force Parents, The schedule for the Tigers Tournament was released today. We are seeded # 1 in the 4th grade Gold Division for the first time in this Tournament. Although we have won the Championship in 2005 and 2006 both years we were entered in the Silver Division. Our schedule has us playing again at Mark Keppel HS in the Large Gym, we will have our first game on Saturday 5/26 at 10:00 a.m., if we win we will play at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday if we lose we will play at 9:00 a.m. We will provide copies of the schedule at practice this week. Remember, practice is Friday at Mariners from 6:30-8:30 p.m. please be there as we need to go over quite a few items for the Tigers Tournament. Thanks again, Mark

After our wake up call at the WLA Tournament Championship Game our boys were very focused over the past two weeks in preparation for the FOR Tournament. Our first game on Friday was against the Saber Bulldogs, our defense was what we had been working on to improve. The end result was allowing them 2 points in the first half to a 38-12 victory. The second game was a revenge game against the FOR Victory who beat us in the Hollywood Dodger Tournament last August in Las Vegas. The Victory had been playing up in 5th grade during the past CBO Season so we needed to bring our "A" game to the court, defense again was the key in a 34-24 victory putting us on course to meet the Ikaika Warriors in the Championship Game on Sunday. This was a game that you should have seen, as coaches we can only diagram and explain what to do on the court. Our boys executed our game plan almost perfectly. We wanted to slow the pace and to turn a 40 minute game into a 20 minute game. At halftime we had an 11-10 lead and were ready to run for the second half. The game came down to the last 35 seconds where we ran an offensive play that we drew in the huddle. We scored the go ahead basket and then with another Warrior time out we set up our defense to shut them down in the last 11 seconds for the 23-22 victory. A big key to our win was our team defense and our free throw shooting. We shot 70% to their 47%. That is why we shoot free throws so much in practice everyweek. We are so proud of our boys on how hard they fought today against a much bigger and stronger Warrior team, it shows what our boys can do if they put their minds to it. They should be proud of this Championship. We will be having practice this Friday at Mariners but no practice on Sunday so we can celebrate Mothers Day together. We might have free VFW practice time on Saturday but are waiting confirmation on this by mid-week. We hope everyone has a much more relaxing Monday then we had on Sunday. Thanks, Mark

Dear Force Parents, Here is the update for next weeks tournament, we have an 8:00 p.m. game on Friday 5/4 at Peary Middle School against the Saber Bulldogs. If we win we will play on Saturday night at 8:00 p.m. if we lose it will be at 7:00 p.m., all games on Sunday will be between 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. We would like to shed a little more light on last weeeks game at Marina Del Rey. As we continue to teach the boys everything there is to know about basketball we also are trying to teach them lessons on life. We learn a lot when losing as we build on our friendships, teamwork and sportsmanship values. It creates a better form of discipline, desire and work ethic. As parents we need to encourage in positive ways how to become a better individual as well as a player. We all need to realize that winning is a good thing but we as coaches and parents have to put things in perspective as the boys will only put out as much as they put in and that with school, other sports and activities there is only so much time to balance things out. We have 7 more years together to make this team a lifelong memory. See you this afternoon at practice, Mark

Dear Force Parents, We have the schedule for the FOR Tournament for May 4,5,6 we will be playing all our games at Peary Middle School where we played in the Megalopolis Tournament last month. Our first game will be on Friday night and we are scheduled to play the Saber Bulldogs. We will play only one game on Saturday and one game on Sunday. I will provide more details later on this week for the tournament. Let me know if you have any questions, Mark