In preperation for the upcoming State Cup games in Sacramento on Jan 14 and 15, the Riptide took part in several "for fun" games over the weekend. First off, they traveled to Jon Swett High School in Crocket on Saturday for the FCA Storm Jamboree. The Riptide played three "for fun" games, each half being 20 minutes. Their fellow competitors were the CSCVS Magic, FCA Storm and Livermore Fusion. The Riptide finised their visit with two wins and one loss. The Jamboree included a skills competition for all of the girls. The winner of the juggling competition was our own Emily Staten who posted a very impressive 140 juggles without allowing the ball to touch the ground. On top of that, Keely took second place. Coach Martin’s juggling program is paying off!

On Sunday afternoon the Riptide were back at our own Trione Fields where they played a scrimmage game against John Schwann’s U-10 Milan boys team. The Riptide, again, came up winners. Now, it’s off to Sacramento for State Cup games against the Pleasonton Rage and the East Diablo Impact.

On Saturday, December 10, the Riptide traversed the Webster Tube to Alameda and the Bay Oaks Bears. The Bears played hard, but the Riptide dominated play. However, this was also the story last week when the Riptide controlled play against the Mustang Blast, but ended up with a 0-0 tie. Emily made sure this would not be the case when 3 minutes into the game, she moved to the front of the net, collected a rebound off of the keeper and put the Riptide up 1-0. But this was not the end of Emily’s clinic on placing yourself in front of the net. Eight minutes into the second half, Emily moved to the front of the goal where Keely found her with a beautifuly placed pass. The Bear keeper blocked Emily’s shot, but Emily never stopped and was there to put in the rebound for her second goal.

In between Emily’s goals, 15 minutes into the first half, Keely took stock of space she had been afforded about 20 yards in front of the Bear goal and the large goals that the Bears play with. Putting one and one together, she placed a perfect shot over the leaping Bear keeper to put the team from Santa Rosa up 2-0. When the Bears were able to move across the mid-line, the Riptide defense of Layla, Leah, Jasmine and Anika were there to shut them down. During the course of the 60 minute game, Megan A. only had one on-goal shot to stop. A nice win for the Riptide going into the Winter Break.

On November 19, the Riptide played the FCA Storm at Trione Fields. Both teams played strong. The Riptide gave up an early goal at the 6 minute mark, but four minutes later, Keely made a great shot from a seemingly impossible angle to tie it up, and that's how it stood at half time. The action was back and forth until the 21st minute when the Storm broke through with what turned out to be the game winner. The Riptide continued to push for the tie and the point that go with it, but couldn't get the ball across the line.

On December 4, the Riptide were back in action. This time they traveled to Danville to take on the Mustang Blast. The Riptide controlled the majority of the play, but again couldn't find a way to get the ball into the net. Fortunately, neither could the Blast, as the Riptide defense held their ground. The game, a State Cup game, ended in a 0:0 tie.

Unlike the Alabama Crimson Tide last weekend, the Santa Rosa United Riptide came through this weekend in great shape. A road game in Cupertino on Saturday, November 12 and a home game on Sunday resulted in a composite score of 12-0, Riptide.

Often, the Riptide come out slow after a long road trip. On this day, they didn’t exactly come out on fire, but they were together enough to prevent the De Anza Force Blue from scoring early. Then, 11 minutes into the game, Meghan C. stuffed home a rebound and the Riptide were rolling. A rebound shot by Nicole took the Riptide into half time with 2-0 lead.

In the second half, the Riptide were on fire. Coach Perez took the opportunity to mix up the line-ups a little and it resulted in goals by a couple of players other than the usual suspects. Layla placed herself perfectly for a rebound goal at 28 minutes. Then, seconds before end time, Megan Anderson made a play that totally confused the Force Blue goalie. At the same time that she took a shot on goal, Megan tripped and began rolling toward the goal. The keeper didn’t know which to stop and consequently, stopped neither. However, the rolling Megan did not count as a goal because she did not completely cross the goal line! Meanwhile, the defense of Layla, Anika, Leah and Jazzy shut down the De Anza attack and got the ball distributed forward to effectively launch counter attacks. At the end, it was a complete 7-0 victory for the Riptide.

On Sunday at Trione, the Riptide kept it going against Diablo FC Arsenal. Like Saturday, the defense locked down early while the offense was finding their legs. At half time the Riptide had a 1-0 lead. Second half...the goals started to flow again. Four second half goals made for a final score of 5-0 and a terrific 12-0 weekend. Great job Riptide.

On Saturday, November 5, the Riptide made the long trip to Oakley in the Sacramento Delta to take on the East Diablo Impact. They came away with one point for the tie, but it was not without assistance. The Impact aided the United team with two "own goals" off of Riptide corner kicks. Emily helped the Riptide cause with a nice penalty kick following an Impact foul in the box.

On October 29 and 30, the Riptide took part in the Placer Prestige Cup. The U-11 Girls played their games on an artificial turf field in the town of Loomis, NE of Sacramento. The girls ended up with one win, one tie, and one loss. Their first game came against the host Placer United Elite. Placer opened the scoring with an early goal off of a penalty kick. That woke the Riptide up and they played strong the rest of the way, but were unable to even the score. The Riptide’s second game came that afternoon against the Avalanche Black who had traveled all the way from the Salt Lake City area in Utah. The Riptide were unimpressed and, 20 minutes into the game, Keely opened the scoring. The Riptide went on to finish with a 4-1 win. The additional goals came from Emily, Oli, and Keely, again. The opening game loss meant that the Riptide could not make it to the championship game, but there was pride at stake and a lot of interest from the Placer team as the Riptide took on the Mill Valley Rockers. A tie or win by the Riptide would let Placer back their way into the Championship game; a win by the Rockers would allow them to play for the Cup. Placer went to the Championship as the Riptide played the always tough team from Mill Valley to a hard fought 1:1 tie.

Sonoma State University is a long way from the beach, but that didn’t slow down the ’01 SRU Riptide. On September 24 and 25 they swept through all four games and wound up being the last team standing. After winning their first three games by scores of 8:2, 2:0, and 3:2, the Riptide took on Sonoma County Alliance for the championship. Final score? Riptide 5:2 SCA. Awesome job Riptide!

Diagram courtesy of Wikipedia

Did you know...

that the ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) is a short vertical ligament that connects the femur and tibia bones of the leg, just behind the knee cap?

Did you know...

that different studies show women athletes are at least 4-6 times more likely to tear an ACL than men?

Did you know...

that once an ACL is torn it is more susceptible to re-injury?

Did you know...

that there are exercise programs that have been developed to aid in the prevention of ACL tears?

Did you know...

that methods have been developed that are used to predict which girls are physiologically more susceptible to ACL tears?

Did you know...

that two soccer playing mothers of children currently with Santa Rosa United have had 9 ACL surgeries between them?

I am not a doctor, however, recently the high incidence of torn ACL’s among young women, specifically soccer playing young women, has been brought to my attention. We are all parents of young and talented soccer players who have the opportunity to play this great game for a long time. Consequently, I feel that it is important to share some of the resources that I have come across that deal with this issue. Conversely, if you have information that you would like to share, please don’t hesitate.

There are different theories as to why ACL tears are more prevalent in females than males and millions of dollars are being spent annually in research programs to help more specifically identify the differences. Many of these theories are based on anatomical differences in the pelvic structure between men and women and how this results in different angles between the bones of the legs. Whatever the cause, the effects of ACL tears, surgery, and the rehabilitation process is traumatic. The implications effect not just soccer careers; they can carry broader, life altering consequences.

The most extensive source that I reviewed is a substantial, and thoroughly researched book, Warrior Girls (Simon and Schuster), that was written in 2008 by Michael Sokolove. This book deals with contemporary women in sports, with a majority of it looking specifically with the causes and implications of ACL tears in women soccer players.

Locally, Todd Weitzenberg, MD of Kaiser Permanente has developed an ACL injury prevention regime. This program is directly accessible from the Santa Rosa United website or you can just click here. This program stands out for its ease of implementation. No special equipment is required; it can easily be done at home. Also, there are self-directing videos on the website that are easily followed. Dr. Weitzenberg played high-level soccer for many years and is also the father of a current SRU player.

Another noteworthy ACL prevention program is one developed by the Santa Monica Sports Medicine Foundation. It is known as the “PEP” (Prevent Injury and Enhance Performance) program. Dr. Bert Mandelbaum is the developer of this program as well as being Team Physician for all U.S. Soccer Federation teams.

A third well known program is “Sportsmetrics”. This program was developed by an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Frank Noyes, and a human movement specialist, Timothy Hewett. You can learn more about this program by clicking here.

In addition to the previously mentioned injury prevention programs, there have been methods developed to assess an athlete’s susceptibility to ACL injury. These are based on posture and movement. While these evaluation techniques vary from visual to using sophisticated force plates, they do not, and cannot eliminate ACL injuries. They can provide a “red flag” for those athletes who may be most prone to the injury. Dr. Christopher Powers, Professor of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy at the University of Southern California and co-director of the Musculoskeletal Biomechanics Research Laboratory uses the sophisticated laboratories of the University to perform his analysis. A visual analysis by a trained professional (Dr. Weitzenberg performs such an analysis) can be similarly effective.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Denise Rapinoe, mother of Rachel and Megan Rapinoe. As many of you probably know, Megan is a starting midfielder for the USA National Team and one of the stars of the 2011 USA Women’s World Cup team. Megan has had two ACL tears and her twin sister, Rachel’s career was shortened by a season ending second tear during her senior year at University of Portland. (Check out this video.) Denise is a strong proponent of exercise programs that will strengthen the supporting muscles of the knees.

This summer the Riptide had special sessions in plyometrics. When properly designed and executed, these exercises form a portion of most ACL injury prevention programs. The effort made by SRU to include this in the program is commendable. There is also more solid information available on the SRU website, if a little buried, by going to the "Home" page, clicking on the “Resources” tab at the top of the page, and then scrolling down to “Health and Education Info”.

Finally, if you also have boys playing soccer, these ACL prevention tips are also appropriate for them. If your kids play other sports, especially basketball, they also are susceptible to ACL injuries; again with the prevalence being higher in women.

Of course, many, many women have competed for years at all levels of soccer and never suffered a serious ACL injury. However, I feel that the incidence of injury is high enough, and the potential consequences severe enough, that this information should be  made available to our soccer community. Thanks for reading and we’ll see you at the pitch.

There has been a lot of discussion lately concerning concussions and head injuries in football and soccer players. I have added a link to a recent article from the New York Times that discusses two of the most current studies, including one conducted at Humboldt State University. This is worth reading. You can find the article by going to the "Soccer Around the World" tab to the left, or by just clicking here.

 If you want to check out our schedule and results for the 2011 Norcal League? Just click here.

Do you no longer see your favorite 2011 Riptide story or picture on the website? Well, you can thank Craig Ruggels. Actually, Craig had a great idea to archive the old articles, as opposed to just deleting them. So, if you would like to read that story one more time, or wonder how Lorna took that awsome picture of your daughter in action, just click here. You will be taken to a webpage with the article titles on the left side of the page. You will have to make sure that you are at the correct year and month, then just click on the article title. It should pop up. Thanks for the suggestion, Craig.