Each summer the Fire end the summer with a weekend party or trip to enjoy the last days of summer!  For the Fire, the good times we have together are as valuable as the soccer that we learn and play so everyone enjoys these bonding weekends.  This year the Fire decided to have a party at Marissa's, then go to the Drive In movies in Auburn since many of the girls haven't been to a drive in before.  We held a team meeting as well to discuss how to increase competitiveness without getting over competitive and how to get 4.0 grades in school this fall.  Coach Tim shared many of his college tricks for getting the highest grades possible and many of our older players shared their study habits with our younger players.  Great to see that mentoring and sharing of ideas going on!  Grades are a big focus for our team as that is essential for getting to college and getting as much financial aid as possible!   After the movies, the Fire headed back to Marissa's to spend the night in tents, laugh and stay up all night!   Around Noon on Sunday the team packed up and headed to Alder Lake to go swimming, play volleyball, play football, and cook up hot dogs for dinner.  The weekend was full of fun and great memories!  CHECK OUT PHOTOS FROM THE WEEKEND ONTHE PICTURES, TEAM ACTIVITIES PAGE!! 

Consistent with our mission of preparing and motivating all of our players for college, the Fire CPT went on a great field trip to Seattle Pacific University on 8/25 to tour the campus and watch the SPU Womens team (2008 NCAA National Champions!) play a pre-season game against British Columbia.  The staff at SPU prepared a great presentation for just our team and spent an hour in one of the lecture halls talking about WHY our girls should go to college, how the admissions process works, what the different types of colleges are like, what college life is like, etc...   It was an informative and inspiring presentation!  Then the Fire split in to two groups and walked through the campus checking out the dorms, the libraries, the classroom buildings (halls), dining halls etc.. with our tour guides describing the history of the school, what the teachers are like, and what college life at SPU is like.  After eating lunch on campus, the presentation, and the tour we headed over to the Stadium to watch the SPU Womens team play against a team from Canada. After the game the Fire players went down on the field for a 30 min question and answer session with several players from the SPU team which was great! The Fire asked many great questions and it became obvious quickly that the SPU Falcons are coached in a similar way, and are a family just like the Fire and Chuck's players are extremely happy playing on the SPU Falcons!  Then the Fire headed home stopping at Old Country Buffet to eat dinner together.  It was an amazing day!  We want to thank SPU (Chuck, Ineliz, and Marques) as well as Annmarie our team manager for setting up such a great and valuable experience for the Fire players!!  The Fire CPT will be doing many more college trips like this throughout the year so the players get to see what the different type and size of colleges are like. GO TO THE PICTURES SECTION TO SEE PHOTOS FROM THE TRIP UNDER TEAM ACTIVITIES!  

Over this weekend 7 Fire players took the 3day Grade 8 referee course in Edgewood and all passed their certification test on Sunday!  The girls will be able to earn extra money referring younger team games all year long.  Great job ladies! and a great way to give back to the game while finding a great paying job that can work around your tough schedules!  Congratulations Shannon, Loralei, Jessica, Kristen, Faith, Ashley and the "driver" Melissa, who drove the whole gang back and forth for 3 days!  

Fire CPT competing in the NW Cup over the weekend in Spokane.  Most of the team stayed the nearby KOA and had a great time hanging out, swimming, and enjoying a team BBQ at Janci and Phillips campsite.  The Fire played 4 games over those three days, 3 against U18 teams and the toughest game against one of the best U16 teams in the state.  SSC Elite, one of the strongest clubs in Eastern WA hosted the tournament.  Game 1 against the selec GU18 Scotties on Friday was a good game with the Fire offense breaking out for 3 goals.  Bailey earned the first hattrick of her soccer career, likely the first of many.  Defense was a little shaky in this game but the modfielders played very strong.  Jessica and Marissa both had assists.  Ashley earned defender of the game, Bailey offender of the game, Jessica midfielder of the game and Marissa earned impact player of the game coming off the bench to get and assist.  Score ended up 3-2 and a win for the Fire CPT.  GAME 2 was the Fire's best with the defense coming alive and playing an exceptional game against the SSC Elite GU18 A team.  The game was a tough, hard fought, well played 0-0 tie until the Fire gave up a goal on a corner in the last minute of the game.  Amber earned offender of the game, Ana earned midfielder of the game, Alex earned defender of the game, Amanda Raymond coming back from her hip injury earned impact player of the game.  Amanda G earned a shutout at keeper.  GAME 3 was a tough 0-3 loss to one of the top G94 teams in the state, and a overly physical game with 3 players suffering long term injuries.  There were some bright spots though.  Amanda R earned midfield of the game for a tough gutsy game at stopper.  Loralei earned defender of the game.  Marissa earned impact player of the game for again making a huge impact from the bench. GAME 4 was a 0-0 tie with a Missoula Eagles GU18 team from Montana.  With both teams suffereing from injuries the game was mostly defensive.  Amber earned offender of the game for her great crosses and playing the whole game.  Melissa earned midfielder of the game and Shannon earned defender of the game.  Keyla earned impact player of the game for coming from the bench and playing well on a sore ankle.   Overall 3 very close games against good year older teams and one game where the Ref lost control of the game.  A fun and good weekend for the Fire CPT.  GO TO THE PICTURES SECTION TO SEE PHOTOS FROM THE TOURNAMENT UNDER GAME PHOTOS AND TEAM ACTIVITIES.

Consistent with our focus on preparing our players as athletes and students to move on to and succeed in college, we push our players very hard to maintain a 3.5+ GPA.  The Fire averaged a 3.65 GPA with 7 players have 4.0 or near 4.0 grades this last spring including 6 perfect 4.0s!  Congratulations ladies for being successful in the classroom as well as on the field.  The players having 4.0 or near 4.0 grades include Ashley, Faith, Alex, Amber, Amanda G, Kristen, and Shannon.  Several players improved their grades dramatically this last spring and we want to say how proud we are of each of you (Amanda R, Jessica, Bailey, Angela, and Mariah). We work with our players teaching them time management and study skills we learned in college and in our careers and every player we have worked with has raised their grades dramatically, as much as a full point in one quarter!  Our goal for fall 2010 is EVERY player at or above a 3.5 GPA and team average GPA of 3.7 or better! 

Today the Fire started a new step in their soccer training in preparation to get the players on this team ready to compete for a chance to play college soccer.  Running is the core of the game and fitness is often what separates the winning team from the losing team.  Using a running assignment learned at camp from our college coaches, the Fire ran 25 minutes as a team along the Puyallup River Levee, then raced back individually to the starting point trying to make it back in 20 minutes or less.  This drill results in the players running with only 1 brief stop at the turnaround point for nearly 45 minutes, the length of half of a soccer game.  Several of the players made the tough assignment, all in all about 6 miles of running.  In September the Fire will find different locations for their cross country running each weekend.  Frontier Park will be the next run on the list.  Great work ladies!    

The Fire completed their 7th annual team soccer camp June 27th to July 2nd at Ft Casey on Whidbey Island.  This wasl our 4th year there at Camp Casey, working with the coaches and players of Seattle Pacific University.  This year was the best camp ever with three great college coaches guest coaching for us including our good friend Mark Metzger (SPU Men's assistant coach), Chuck Sekyra (SPU Women's Head Coach), and Sasha Shefts (Bellevue College Women's Head Coach).   Getting a week of real college coaching is a unique opportunity resulting from our long time friendship with Mark Metzger, one of the most motivating coaches in the NW.  We are the only youth girls premier team we know of that does something like this!  Every year the Fire go as an entire team to spend a week together working on soccer skills and college level team tactics with great college coaches while enjoying a great week of team bonding.  The team coaches supervise the whole week and organize the camp, while the excellent mess hall staff there at the camp keep us all fed well.  We had 2 or 3 practice sessions during the day, including some classroom and game video training, and then did fun team building and bonding activities in the evenings.  We did bonfires, went in to town to watch a movie together, went on hikes exploring the beautiful beaches and historic Ft Casey, and watch movies and do talent shows in the Barraks at night.  The players had a great time together, getting to know each other better, and developing a bond and a comittment to each other that will last the whole year long!  The original Camp Schedule shows you some of what we had planned at this years team camp.  As a part of Fire team camp, the players set their goals for 2010.  Here are the top 5 team goals the Fire have set for 2010:

1) Finish at the top of P2 and make P1/RCL (or PSPL Super League) for next year (2011).
2) Win at least 1 tournament championship
3) Beat the Tornados :) our good friends from the north and a great team! as well as the Revolution A team this year somewhere along the way!
4) Win 2 games at the Field Turf Cup college showcase tournament.
5) Play with consistency and have no blowouts or bad games! 
6) ALL players maintaining a 3.5 or higher GPA in school as they all prepare for college! 

Those wanting to learn more about our guest camp coaches from Seattle Pacific University and about SPU's individual camps can go to the SPU Website!  Learn more about Chuck Sekyra, Mark Metzger, and Sasha Shefts!  The Fire want to thank all three of our college coaches for an awesome team camp this year!!!  We also want to thank the great staff at Camp Casey!  There is no more beautiful place in the world for a team retreat and training camp than Camp Casey with the sound of the ocean waves, breathtaking painted sunsets every night, wildlife all around you, beautiful huge soccer fields, and cool ocean breezes.  We will certainly be planning our return for year 5 next summer!!  Check out the Pictures section under Fire Activities Photos to see 200+ pictures from camp this year.

Last week WSYSA released the final CAP scores for all the G93 teams in WSYSA at the end of 2009.  This list mixes the PDL with the state league teams.  The Fusion Fire are working very hard to make it to the top level of the game in the next 2 years to provide the high school age girls from our region (mixed from 14 to 16 years old currently) a local premier team (or college prep team) through SGE soccer club that can help them get to college and have the chance to play in college.  We are trying to position ourselves as a South pierce county option to WPFC for those players that can't afford WPFC or can't commute to practices and games at their fields in Fife.   The attached CAP SCORE SUMMARY was created from the WSYSA final posting for 2009 girls teams which will be used in placing 2010 teams in the new RCL and SL.  It also shows some recent results (state cup and later) of games the Fire have played against teams on this list over the last few months.  On this list the BLUE teams are state league teams, the RED teams are PDL teams.   Click on Read More to learn more details about what this means for the Fire!  The bottom line is that the Fire achieved their goal for 2009 and will move to P2 for 2010 as a result of their hard work, dedication, and exceptional committment to their team and to each other in 2009.  Great work ladies!  Together there is no limit to what you can achieve.  Your coaches and your parents are extremely proud of you :)  You are amazing and inspiring to coach! 

The Fire had their first team party of the 2010 season on 6/4 with a trip to the SkyHigh Trampoline facility in Bellevue and a sleepover party at Ashley's house.  The girls had a great time playing trampoline dodgeball and jumping in to the foam pit! This was combined with a very successful two day fund raising event including a Rummage Sale, Car Wash, and Bake Sale all held at a local church on Friday and Saturday. The Fire players baked a bunch of great deserts to sell, we sold hot dog lunches to our guests, ran a car wash, and most of the families brought items to sell in the rummage sale.  All together the weekend fund raising effort brought in over $1300 to help pay for the costs of soccer camp!  Great work everyone and special thanks to our team manager Annemarie Dixon for all her work setting up this weekend (as well as all the parents that helped!) and to Len and Marlene Phillips for arranging to allow us to use the church as the venue.  The Fire players are such a great group of young ladies! It was so enjoyable to have absolutely no negative issues and such a great group that is so respectful and so well behaved!  This great weekend was a result of a true team effort :)   Check out the pictures through the pictures link!    

The Fire had their first of several planned fund raisers for 2010, a car wash at Rite Aid in Graham.  The car wash brought in over $600 to help reduce player costs for 2010.  Thanks to Jackie and Annemarie for setting up this and the other upcoming fund raisers.  Thanks to Tom and Janci for helping supervise and washing cars for many hours!   The girls worked hard and had a good time earning money to pay for their own soccer!  Checkout the Pictures section for more pictures from the car wash.

Over Thanksgiving weekend the Fire competed in the 2009 Field Turf Cup college showcase tournament held at Starfire.  The Fire played extremely well against great teams in front of nearly 30 college coaches in attendance!   The Fire worked very hard preparing for this tournament researching and deciding their career interests, researching colleges, making sure their grades were a strong as possible, preparing their soccer resumes, and writing emails to the college coaches.  The Fire coaches helped them with all these tasks.  Each year the Fire get stronger in this tournament and the gap between the Fire and the top 20 teams we play against in these tournaments gets smaller.  The Fire lost 1-2 to the FWU Reign White team in game 1. Lost 0-4 to the exremely strong Surrey Pegasus team from Canada with 9 players from their equivalent to our ODP program, won 4-1 against NW Nationals Blue team, and then lost 0-4 to the WPFC G93 Black team.   The Fire played extremely well during the first half of each game either being up or down by only 1 point!  It was the 2nd half against the stronger teams where the Fire Struggled.   Winning a game, losing one narrowly after being up 1-0 at half, and being down only 0-1 at half in both games against the super club A teams was quite an improvement from last year and shows the Fire are progressing and developing quite nicely now.  We also had 3 Thunder players playing up two years with the Fire and they played fantastic, having great impact on the Fire's good showing this year.  The tournament was a great experience for everyone and the coaches are extremely proud of all the girls for how hard they worked and how hard they played.  Good work ladies!    Click on Read More to see a review of each game!