Girls Youth Soccer

Islander Blast is Oak Harbor's under-14 girls soccer team. They travel anywhere from Blaine to Seattle in search of quality tournaments and are just starting their league season. The Blast is coached by Ric Dutton, assisted by Danielle Moore. Rick has been coaching soccer for 11 years, 5 of them in Oak Harbor while Danielle has been coaching for 5 years, and played at the collegiate level at Norwich University. The team is sponsored by Jet City Equipment in Oak Harbor.

Islander Blast lost 5 starters off last years' team that finished in 4th place with a .500 record so is in a bit of a rebuilding mode. However, Coach Dutton has several quality returners on the team, among them Amanda d'Almeida, MacKenzie Schneider, Megan Peterson and Chelsea Atkinson. The coach also expects big things out of Alex Laiblin - a 12-year-old who showed enough potential to move from the U-12 team to the U-14 team.

Even with the loss of the starters, Coach Dutton expects the girls to have a successful season, finishing in at least the top 4. His primary goals are to push the girls' confidence level through team building and working on individual skills.

The first game is this Saturday, September 5th in Snohomish. The team has a complete website, http://www.hometeammanager.com/teams/NWSCIslanderBlast/frontPage.aspx

There are 53 photos of the practice posted at http://www.shutterfly.com/pro/OakHarborSports/YouthSports/GSoccer92U14