Squad earns third tourney title

Pictured in the bottom row from left to right: Katie Burciaga, Celeste Aguilar, Ella Salazar, Vanessa Rojas, Laura Vasquez, Kayla Aquino, Lola Flores, Gisselle Leon, Gali Cuautle. Top row: Isabella Reynoso, Melissa Aguilar, Alyssa Dominguez, Maya Perez, Melanie Guerrero, Sammi Polk, Layla Salinas, coaches Henry Salazar, Chris Guerrero and Adrian Dominguez. Not pictured Sarah Caesar. Courtesy photo

The FC Premier Los Alamitos Girls 2004 team won the Huntington Beach Sand Soccer tournament over the June 3 weekend and have now won the tournament 3 out of the past 4 years.
The Huntington Beach Sand Soccer tournament is the largest beach soccer tournament in the country. It is a bit of a change of pace for the girls, who play year round on grass fields and this year.
This year was especially meaningful because FC Premier lost the first match against a tough Costa Mesa Pateadores team and then rebounded with wins against AVSC Storm (4-1) and Tigres UANL (9-0).  The loss would’ve prevented the team from advancing to the finals but the Pateadores team lost and the shut out FC Premier mounted against the Tigres squad gave the local team the top seed of the group.
It set up a championship match against Canyon FC, who were the winners in their group after going undefeated in pool play.  It was tied 1-1 at half time but after the local team started hitting on all cylinders they scored five goals to finish with a final score of 6-1.
The FC Premier Los Alamitos also recently finished in first place in the Coast Soccer Spring League and made it to the quarterfinals of the Cerritos Memorial Cup tournament in spite of many serious injuries to standout players.

This article appeared in the June 14, 2017 print edition of the News Enterprise.