NorCal Beach Soccer Club continues to grow as they bring on a women’s team to the club. The women’s participation in beach soccer continues to grow & Pro-Am Beach Soccer is very excited to support its growth. The NorCal Beach Soccer club continues to train hard consistently week in and week out. In recent events, they have participated in tournaments in United States and traveled internationally.
The club travelled to Southern California, to compete in the Sand Champions Cup 2017. The tournament was a great experience for both the women and men as both teams made good runs towards the finals. This event was held in Long Beach, California and attracted many competitive teams from all over California.
The men’s semi-final match consisted of a competitive match against long term rival the Los Angeles Beach Soccer Team (LABST). The game began with the LABST taking the lead in the first period. This did not hold for long while NorCal was motivated to triumph. NorCal continued to fight hard to earn their spot in the final when LABST took the lead again in the third period. Within the last minutes of the game, NorCal scored to tie the game once again on a brilliant efforts by Gabe Silveira, and it kept their hopes alive to the final. The team to move forward to the final was decided by 5 penalty kicks per team. After all penalties kicks were taken, NorCal advanced to the final after hitting the mark in sudden death following a LABST shot saved by NorCal’s Marty Mannion.
The Men’s final had two teams from Northern California; Santa Cruz BSC and NorCal BCS. NorCal Beach Soccer Club won 3-2 over the three periods of intense beach soccer. It continues to show the quality of players being produced in Northern California as both teams navigated the teams mostly from Southern California.
The Women NorCal Beach Soccer Club put everything they had into the tournament to earn their spot in the semi-final. After multiple games against good competition and some injuries, the women NorCal BSC were not able to keep up against their opponent. They lost 2-1 to the eventual champion who scored two early goals and played defense as NorCal Women peppered the goal finding crossbars, posts, and brilliant saves by the keeper.
The following tournament was definitely a new challenge for the ladies. The NorCal BSC traveled to compete in 8th Annual BagoSports Tobago Beach Soccer Championship. This was the first time the women’s NorCal BSC participated in this tournament and the second year for the men’s team. For this tournament, the men’s side had six men’s teams and five women’s teams.
The women’s team played hard to earn a spot in the final. They completed the group stage with success qualifying them into the semi-final match. The semi-final match consisted of NorCal competing against Tobago Chicas. In the group stage, Tobago Chicas won the game 2 – 1 but in the semi-final NorCal won 5 – 2. The NorCal win advanced them to the finals where they competed against Shoreline Beach Soccer Club. The final consisted of a Southern California team, Shoreline BSC, versus a Northern California team, NorCal BSC. The battle of California teams was intense and spectacular match to watch and to learn from.
After 8 straight fouls called against them by the same official, four of which were scored, the deficit was just too much to come back from, but they battled to the end and showed amazingly in their first ever international competition. Shoreline BSC earned the Champions Title beating NorCal 7 – 3 over the three periods. Even though NorCal did not win the Championship, they left with high spirits and much to look forward to. Keeping a positive attitude to prepare for the upcoming tournaments.
Shoreline BSC based in Southern California featured 3 players from the European Champions team England, as well as one of the top goalies in the world from Holland, as well as a Mexican international player with vast beach experience. For our NorCal “local’s” team it was a formidable team to test their level against. They are very excited for the next chance to see top level international competition.
On the men’s side, they had 6 teams competing vigorously to earn their spot in the final. The teams were split into two groups of three. After competing against the teams in their individual groups, the first place team automatically reserved a semi-final position. The remaining teams played an additional game to earn a place in the semi-final match.
In the first game, NorCal faced hometown favorite Hurricanes. The game was tightly contested and ended in a draw. What followed was a pk contest like no one had witnessed as they went through the entire squad and the Hurricanes won on the 13th shooter. Due to the NorCal losing their first game to Hurricanes from Trinidad, NorCal needed to play against the Blackrock Spartans of Tobago to reach the semi-finals. NorCal completed the match in victory overcoming the Spartans 6 – 2 with only six players. In fact, the second period of the Hurricane game was the last time they 7 players after a highly questionable dissent ejection, followed by French guest player “Sabri” getting taken out in the box in the second game and tearing his ACL on a play where no foul was called.
Nevertheless, this led NorCal to the semi-finals against AQ Travel Lions. Both teams played a phenomenal game to achieve a spot in the semi’s match. The game ended with AQ Travel Lions, from Costa Rica, winning 9 – 4 over the NorCal Men’s team. After being down 3 – 1 in the first period, the AQ Travel Lions came back to win the tournament over the Hurricanes Beach Soccer Club 7 – 5.
NorCal gained a tremendous amount of experience in this event and will continue to train vigorously to be prepared for the upcoming domestic and international calendars.
