Practice Report

Holy cow, Hillcrest Road made it out to practice today. What a lovely day it was. Sunshine and warm weather abounds. The U-19 Juniors were out training at the beginning of practice, with Technical Director Peter Vermes personally coaching the session. A group of players from O'Hara High School were out to watch the practice and seemed very impressed by the shooting display put on from long range by our midfielders during one drill.

The guys started out with conditioning as usual, then split into two groups. A group of midfielders (Colombano, Morsink, McMahen, Marinelli, Miles, Jewsbury, Pore, Watson I hope I'm not forgetting anyone) went with Assistant Dave Tenney to the bluegrass field and practiced their long-range shooting. The remaining players worked on defensive shape and counterattacks on the Bermuda field.

After that, the players joined together for an 11-v-11 scrimmage on the Bermuda field. A few reserve players remained on the Bluegrass field for finishing practice, and equipment manager Alex Paepke took his turn providing service. Lance Watson buried a couple of good opportunities that Paepke served up.

After practice concluded, Kerry Zavagnin stuck around to kick the ball with Bryan Truta of 105.1 Jack FM and Cherryh Butler of Ink Magazine (www.inkkc.com). Cherryh was a natural, Bryan (supposedly a former player) was a little rusty. Expect a Truta QnA, video and pics from that little session shortly. Truta, already a Wizards fan, and Butler were extremely impressed with practice and are very much looking forward to participating in the third-annual media game on July 10. Come out to see them play!