Coach's Comments

2003 Titans

4/26/03 - Urbandale Tourney What a difference one day and one loss can make. Last night was a night we all want to forget but will always manage to look back on. A loss to cross town rival St Alberts gave us the call we needed. We traveled to Des Moines today for the Urbandale Tournament were we played two very good teams and two very good games. We started out the day with Perry who was 2-1 and from Division 1A. We stressed communication, possession, and patience and we will walk away winners. 9 minutes into the game Andy Himes laid a perfect corner in and Luke Thomsen was there to put it away. We moved Luke to the corner kicks to try to take advantage of his size. It worked, he got in there and won it out. Less then 20 seconds later Josh Probst lays a great pass down the middle to Pat Powers and he is off to the races one on one to win the battle. 2-0 at the half and the Titan pride is back. 17 minutes in the second half John Harvey feeds up a corner kick to the dog, Keith Damgaard is there waiting. He puts it away. The game ends 3-0 and we played like we know we can. Better possession but it will have to pick up in the next game, we will play Urbandale the defending State Champinion.

Urbandale lost the first game of the day so we knew now they would be really hungry. It toook 24 minutes into the game as we felt each other out beforee Jesse Smith hooked up with Luke Thomsen for a corner to tie up the game at 1. 3 minutes later Luke hooks up Pat Powers and he is one on one with the keeper again. He puts it away to give us the first lead in the game. They score 2 more before the half and take a 2-3 into the intermission. They score again in the second half to go up 2-4 and we now have to work a little harder. We played so much better in this game, it makes you feel good knowing that they can when they need to. We just need to figure out how to make them play like that all the time. We get within 1 when Luke scores his third goal for the day. Just not enough. It was a loss but it felt nothing like last nights. We walked off the field with our heads up high. We gave what we had to offer and left nothing behind. A loss is a loss but you want to go done fighting, and fighting we did. Over all for the day we took 20 players along and all 20 seen some action. That is something that makes you feel good when you can do that. You have the people on the bench that you know you can count on when you need them. The bench stepped up and played very well for us today. We were able to give the starters momments of rest and the quality of play continued on the field. Our possession improved and the communication picked up. Two things you need if you plan on moving up to the next level. Justin Toole logged 23 saves for the day and his second shut out for the season. We moved Josh Grosvenor up front and started him in the forward position today. We might have found his nitch. He checked back for the ball, waited several seconds, dropped it back and went. This is what we have been missing and it worked well. Tuesday we will travel to Oakland to take on Riverside. This is always a good game because the are very physical. We will be ready for a full week.

Monday at practice will be picture night. Bring your packet and check. We will take pictures before practice at 4 pm.

Thank you all for your support and your visits to our page. Keep checking back I will post different things off and on. Interested in how the boys did and what they look like, then check out the 2003 Varsity Squad & Stats and 2003 Junior Varsity Squad & Stats pages to see our running season stats. Check back again for more comments.