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Sting Place Third at 3v3 Nationals, Finish with Second Best Record.

U12s Win Championship.

Orlando, Florida (July 30, 2006) -  The rising u10 Sting finished in third place at the Challenge Sports 3v3 National Championship tournament. The team finished, tied with Pennsylvania, for the second best record overall (4-2) and finished ahead of all of the other Florida teams. McAllen United, a team from Texas, won the championship by going undefeated (6-0).

The u12 team, led by Sunrise u14 coach Gus Camacho, won the National Championship, winning relatively easily. The team, called the Heat, was made up of two Sunrise players (Tatiana Penagus and Haleigh Stremanos), two Kendall players and one from Weston. The girls went 3-0 during pool play  and entered Sundays Quarterfinal Match-up against a very impressive team from South Carolina, the Heat won 8-2 advancing to a semi final matchup with a team from Jacksonville called "the Green Lizards".  The Heat won that match 12-0 putting them into a showdown with the two time defending champions, Ponte Verde Storm.  This was the same team that knocked the Heat out of the semi-finals last year. The Heat came out strong and never looked back beating a very good Storm team 6-0 and earning their first National 3 v 3 Title.



The u9 girls, as well as the families, had a great time at this tournament. Speaking in terms of soccer, the team finished better than when we started. The team had not played in a tournament since mid-May and it showed early on. But the team really improved as the tournament progressed and we finished on a strong note. We were very happy with the level of skill that the team displayed. Specifically, our passing game was excellent throughout and was really something to marvel at. The high level of competition at this tournament also brought out some weaknesses in the team that we will need to work on, and did work on during the tournament as they became apparent.

The Sting opened up against CFU. This would be the third time the two teams had met. The teams tied the first time and we won the second time we played. In this game, the first half ended tied at 1-1. We controlled the flow of play in the first half and our passing was really something. Unfortunately for us, CFU took advantage of some big defensive mistakes on our part in the second half and scored four goals in quick succession to take a 5-1 lead. We fought back and made it 5-3, but the clock ran out on us before we could complete our comeback. This loss ended the team's 25-game unbeaten streak. Needless to say, better defense became the focus of our team for the remainder of the tournament.

Next up was the Tampa Knights (the Pink Tornadoes).  The girls started very strong in this game and went on to win 6-2. On Saturday morning we played the Pinellas/St.Petersburg Raiders. The team played another good game and won 6-3. The win put us as the second seed in our bracket, and Pinellas ended up as the third seed, which meant we had to play Pinellas again later that afternoon. This time, the girls played even better, and we won this one 10-2.

That put us in the semi-finals against the number one seed from the other bracket, the McAllen United Angels (Texas). The Texas team was undefeated. This was quite a game and the girls gave it everything they had. Texas took an early lead in this game, but from that point it was back and forth and evenly played. Both teams played very hard and Texas ended up with a 5-3 win. This Texas team was a little bit better than us and we made some mental errors that hurt us. However, the reason we play these tournaments is to be exposed to great teams and Texas was certainly such a team. Texas won the next game against Pennsylvania to win the championship and finish undefeated. All of the teams in this tournament showed great sportsmanship but the Texas team was special in this regard, as they gave all of our girls a gift from their team and took a team picture with us after the game.

The loss put us in a game for third place against our in-state rival, CFU. We were the only remaining Florida teams in the tournament. We played much better than we did just two days earlier against CFU, and we won this game 5-1.

Standings for the top five teams (there were nine teams in total)