GU10 All Stars Find Victory at the Founder's Cup

The girls U10 All-Star team, coached by Adam Jensen and Stephen Cooper, entered the 2011 Founder's Cup Tournament on a roll. They placed first in their division at Riverside's Locomotion Tournament, first in their division at Thousand Oaks' Pot O' Gold Tournament, and are atop the standings in the Gold Division of Palos Verdes' Spring Select League as the only undefeated team. In Saturday's pool play, they found themselves pitted against some familiar teams from the PV Spring Select league -- the San Pedro Bees and the Palos Verdes Dynamite, as well as a new team from Balboa Park.

Although they had beaten two of the three teams previously, there was some concern as the team was not at full strength -- forward Maisey McRae was out with a broken arm and center mid-fielder Maya Cooper was out due to illness. They won without difficulty 5-0 and 6-0 over San Pedro and Balboa Park respectively, but a messy game against Palos Verdes, which left Abbie Grossman with a broken arm as well, ended in a 3-3 tie. Perhaps the only bright spot was that it was enough to put them (and the Dynamite) through to the medal round. In the semi-finals, Santa Monica faced off against Area 1P rival Beverly Hills -- the only team to whom they had lost in competition in 3 months of playing together. Worries that history would repeat itself lurked, but Cooper returned to the line-up and helped propel the team to a decisive 5-0 victory, with three goals coming off the red shoes of Alexis Moran, a.k.a "Dorothy." On the other side of the bracket, the Dynamite earned a closely fought 2-1 victory over their own area rival -- the Palos Verdes Soleil, so the final stage was set for a re-match. In the ultimate game, the Dynamite scored first, but Santa Monica answered with two goals from Giulia Trevellin and Lucia Saignac-Perez, and lead at the half. By the end, of the third quarter, however, the game was tied again 2-2. With the Dynamite's second goal coming in the clo