11 Davao FA girl booters join national training pool

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

ELEVEN girl booters of the Davao Football Association (Davao FA) made their way to the Philippine U13 girls national training pool after steering the city team to the championship victory in the just-concluded Philippine U13 Girls Selection Tournament in Bacolod City.

Davao FA U13 head coach Reynalyn Ravanes, who guested at the Davao Sportswriters Association (DSA) Forum at the Tower Inn yesterday, said Moira Calizo, Zuleika Yee, Patricia Francisco, Joannah Adao, Joyce Semacio, Therese Reyes, Michaela Co, Sofia Paredes, Elizabeth Santos, Arwen Allado, Kyra Gabinete and Bea De Luna were included in the 33-member training pool.

"I am proud and thankful of the performance of the players. I just hope they will also make it into the national team," Ravanes said.

The training pool program opened yesterday and will end on Saturday at the Panaad Park and Stadium. Only 22 players, however, will be selected to don the country's colors in the Asian Football Confederation tournament in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam in June. Training for the official national team will start on May 8.

Ravanes said it was an overwhelming experience for her team to play in a huge stadium.

"The weather was fine in the first two days of the tournament in Bacolod City but it was raining when we transferred to the Carlos Hilado Memorial State College (CHMSC) for our next two games. Good thing was that we won our third game despite of the heavy rain," she said.

Assistant coach Analou Ingles also said they have difficulty adjusting to the sizes of the fields since the one in Panaad was 90x110 while the CHMSC
field was 60x80.

"We had a difficult time running our plays since the field was smaller and the players look cluttered on the field that resulted to our loss against the San Carlos University in the last game. The most important thing was winning the title and the players got the chance to join the national training pool," Ingles said in the vernacular.

Published in the Sun.Star Davao newspaper on April 25, 2012.