June 14-15, 2003
The Squad consisted of both founding Dasai members; Amanda, Amy, Claire, Dara, Emma, Jenny, Maggie, Orla, Seng, and our captain Susan, as well as our other members who joined us since the last Nagano Tournament; Ayumi, Clare, Jamisen, Monique, Paula and Zoe. Our coach, Dave came along with orange-boy Kazu and supporters including Aki, Brian, Victor and Susan's friend.
We played in a six-a-side tournament, so with 16 players on our squad, we had plenty of subs and lots of cheerleaders! On day one, the 12 teams were divided into three groups.
Saitama was placed with Toyama 1, Yamanashi 2 and Shizuoka. Toyama were going to be our biggest threats as they were past Nagano Tournament winners in 2002 and also winners of the Tochigi Tournament in April 2003.
Day One (Saturday 14 June)
We all met nice and early at Omiya and travelled with the Saitama Jets FC team. in a private bus hired by Sue.
Our first game was against Shizuoka 2. This was their first tournament so we weren't too sure what to expect from them. It was a good game and we ended up winning 3-2 (Ayumi 3).
Next was vs Yamanashi 2 (the Yama Mama's) where we had a great game, winning 4-0. (Ayumi, Orla, Amanda and Susan).
Our final game of the day was against Toyama 1. We had previously beaten them at Tochigi, but they have a number of fit and skilled players that unfortunately scored three goals against us. This was our first loss for the weekend. 0-3.
The top 6 teams after day one progressed to the Championship Round and the bottom 6 teams to the Plate Championship to be played on Sunday. After Saturday, we were ranked 4th out of twelve teams. (Rankings 1:Toyama 1, 2: Nagano, 3: Mie, 4: Saitama, 5: Chiba, 6: Osaka)
Saturday night was the party where we were nicknamed last year and had so much fun at. This year was no exception. The Dasai girls took over the ledge and did the dancing and drinking we are so good at! Many a person had ���� written on their arm by a certain team member, but it was all in good fun!
Coach Dave also won a prepay international phone card in the JENS raffle draw. Apart from the bar running out of alcohol this was another top night.
Day Two (Sunday 15 June) Knockouts
First we played the 5th ranked team after Saturday, Chiba. We dominated the game and managed to score against them twice. There were many more chances, but unfortuantely there were a couple of bad calls by the ref for offside and a couple of goals weren't counted! Final score was 2-0 (Ayumi and Maggie)
(In the other quarter final game Mie played Osaka. Mie won and played Toyama in Semi-final 1, losing to Toyama.)
We played in Semi-final 2 against the cool girls from Nagano. This was another close game with both teams having great strength. There were a few injuries during this game for both teams and we were unlucky to lose Maggie off the field with an ankle injury. Even though the game was so close, Nagano managed to squeeze 2 goals past us, meaning the Tournament was over for us. Final score 0-2
We then went to Sania Park to cheer on the guys team who had beaten last years champions, Nagano in the semi-final by penalty shootouts and made it to the Semi-finals. They played Gunma who they had only beaten once before out of the 3 games they had played against them, and they won 3-0. This meant that they once again made it to the final!
The final was against Osaka who had a really strong team. It was a fiercely competed game, but unfortuately the lads lost 0-2.
Overall we were ranked 3rd and the guys ranked 2nd, so this makes our Prefecture the best in the tournament! Who rocks? SAITAMA ROCKS!
Dasai at Nagano June 2003 were........
L-R: Back: Kazu, Susan, Ayumi, Clare, Jenny, Dara, Paula, Dave
Middle: Jamisen, Zoe, Monique, Maggie, Amy
Front: Claire, Emma, Seng, Amanda, Orla
