Community warms to Kitsap Pro Soccer plans

Kitsap looks like it is getting a pro soccer club.

A meeting at Bremerton High School on September 11th drew local residents, soccer fans and school board and community advocates together to talk about the possible impact a new pro soccer club would have on Bremerton and the high school stadium.

Robin Waite introduced his plans for bringing a professional soccer club to Bremerton in 2009. He told the gathering of about fifty that the "Kitsap Soccer Club" will be putting a website online within the next few weeks at www.KitsapSoccerClub.com.

Debate remains about the surface of Memorial Stadium. Waite would prefer grass with new drainage and a wider pitch. The school district prefers the functionality of Field Turf.

School and community officials talk about using Memorial Stadium for pro soccer.

Waite has purchased a scoreboard for the stadium as a goodwill gift to the Bremerton School District. He hopes to add a video screen later if the district approves use of the venue for pro soccer.

Attendees talked about traffic, ticket prices, even what the club would be called. Waite revealed the choices that can be voted on when the club website comes online: Pilots, Paladins, Pumas or Kaisers. There is an 'other' option, which drew a sign of relief from some in the crowd who didn't like any of those suggestions.

Club owner Robin Waite addresses the gathering.

The new Kitsap club will be in no way connected to the current Seattle Sounders in name or in league. They will be enough of the same 'franchise' to allow Waite, a current Sounders owner, to transfer them without paying new club fees, but Kitsap will begin life in the Premier Development League (PDL) with hopes of doing more soon after that. United Soccer Leagues First Division will go dark in the state of Washington.

The PDL is a summer league (May-July) that uses college talent to staff clubs' unpaid rosters. It is the third level in the United Soccer Leagues system. Waite says his Kitsap PDL club will be professional and will pay its players. He says this is already happening in Vancouver with the Whitecaps residency club, and may also happen next year when Victoria Highlanders FC join the league.

Further, Waite is in communication with at least six other clubs now at the PDL level who would also like to 'go pro' and build what would amount to a USL Second Division "Western Conference." Waite would like Kitsap to go to that level.

The idea of pro soccer at Memorial Stadium was warmly received.

Finally, Waite spoke briefly to me personally about Tacoma Tide FC, a club that will now be a rival 30 miles to the south. He believes that TFC might at some point also want to go pro in the PDL in hopes of moving up to the talked-about USL-2 West.

Kitsap plans to charge $10, $8 and $5 for tickets with the $5 dollar seats being added at both ends of the pitch in roll-away seating. With the addition of around 1,600 end line seats the capacity of Memorial would be raised to around 4,700. Waite said he has hopes to host the Des Moines Menace at some point in an attempt to break their regular season PDL single match attendance record of just under 4,000.

Olympic College has been contacted in regards to use of their parking lots.

Kitsap Pro Soccer Club promised neighbors at the meeting that they would over-staff the first few matches the club played to be sure that traffic did not become an issue around local streets.

The public has had their initial say and now Waite and the School District need to finalize the details before the club can kick off in Bremerton in 2009. Indications from the meeting are that public response is favorable and won't be a barrier in making things work.

Peninsula Pirates play tough in Canada

The Pirates soccer team returned from Victoria with a good showing but no stats to prove it. On Monday the Pirates played University of Victoria, losing 3-0. UVIC scored in the first half at about 30 min. in. The Pirates gave up two more goals late in the second half. We played hard for 90 minutes against UVIC and we looked really good. We had some really good performances from John Troka in the midfield and Jase Hall in the goal.

On Tuesday the Pirates started a little flat against Vancouver Island University and it cost them a goal 5 minutes in. Vancouver Island scored 3 more in the first half. But, the Pirates rebounded to play Vancouver Island tough in the second half and hold them scoreless with the final score ending at 4-0. We had one bad half but besides that we played them very tough. We had two really good chances in the second half by Ernest Boham, just missing the goal.

Both these University’s allow their players to play for 5-years. If you ask me how I feel about these losses and how we played, I would say “We started the same way last year, losing 3-0 and 5-1, but yet we ended up winning 14 games in the season”.

Andrew Chapman

Head Men's Soccer Coach

Peninsula College

North Kitsap kids get fresh look at soccer

POULSBO — The North Kitsap Soccer Club’s youngest shooters will soon be playing on a new field: equality.

NKSC coaching director Chris May said in reviewing the club’s programming, too much time was being spent perfecting the skills of the older players and not enough focus was on the needs of the little ones.

In the past the young-uns would compete against one another on teams, which looked similar to a confused, yet enthusiastic, school of fish darting to and fro. They played on bumpy and sloped fields at Port Gamble. Not all of the athletes were taught at the same skill level, as the coaches are all parent volunteers and not all are proficient in soccer’s rules and skills.

The results: Several kids who didn’t have much fun, the playing field wasn’t equal and the competition was too intense.

“It wasn’t very much fun and they weren’t learning,” May said. “Kids are way too young at that age to play soccer on a competitive level. Trying to have 5-year-olds compete is crazy.”

Experts say competition at 5 and 6 can be detrimental to learning.

Therefore this fall NKSC is launching a new program for its U6 and U7 players, aptly titled the “Micro Academy.”

The new focus is fun, the basics, and equal learning opportunities for all with an emphasis on child development.

Read the rest here.

College Soccer Bloggers Wanted

www.GOALSeattle.com, www.GOALTacoma.com and www.GOALKitsap.com are looking for bloggers and / or reporters to help us cover college soccer this Fall!

We have been in contact with many of the Sports Information Directors around the Sound and are lining up players and coaches to send us exclusive blogs about their clubs.

If you are a player and would like to blog for one of our websites, please contact your coach and your SID. They can contact me: David Falk at goalseattle@gmail.com.

If you are a fan, parent or friend, please consider sending some kind of report when you go to a match. It doesn't have to be anything lengthy or professional, just your own view of what went down in a few words.

Here is how our coverage looks so far...

www.GOALSeattle.com
we've got coverage coming from Seattle University Redhawks

www.GOALTacoma.com
we've got coverage coming from Tacoma CC, Pierce CC and possibly South Puget Sound CC.

www.GOALKitsap.com
we've got coverage coming from Peninsula CC

If your local school isn't listed under one of the websites above, please let them know so we can give them some extra love, too!

SK loses girls varsity coach as season approaches

It wasn’t so long ago that South Kitsap High School had just one coach guiding its soccer teams.

Now the Wolves have two, and they’re looking to fill both positions.

Girls coach Scott Sodorff announced his resignation last week after two years.

Sodorff, who had a 19-10-4 record, and his wife, Jamie, decided to move back to California.

The Sodorffs welcomed their first child, Isabella, on May 26.

Sodorff’s departure follows that of Eric Bergeson, the Wolves’ boys coach, who resigned in June.

Bergeson was also the girls soccer coach prior to Sodorff’s arrival.

“I loved being at South and loved teaching there,” Sodorff said. “It’s very hard to step away.”

Read the rest in the PO Independent

National Adult Cup Finals at Starfire August 7-10

Starfire Sports Complex will once again host the United States Adult Soccer Association National Cup Finals in 2008.

The Tournament kicks of August 7th.

This pdf file page reveals the match-ups and shows that Forza, featuring Michelle French, are the lone Washington State club.

You can see how the finalists got to Seattle here.

Here are video highlights from last year's Finals at Starfire...

Will we find out more in August?

The July 14 article in the Kitsap Sun that declared the Poulsbo soccer stadium idea as out of the running left us little else to go on.

Robin Waite is still apparently at work, now perhaps talking with the City of Bremerton about stadium land.

The United Soccer Leagues requires its owners to put down a deposit for the following season in the August before. So we might know more about Waite's efforts to bring high-level soccer to Kitsap sometime in the next few weeks.

I wondered the other day if Bremerton High School's Memorial Stadium could be a possibility. There is parking from nearby Olympic College, and just think how much the city and both schools would benefit from an upgrade to that venue.