Gustie Co-Ed Youth Camp 2015

Wow. What a fantastic week at our Gustie Co-Ed Youth Camp.  The weather was beautiful, the campers were talented, and the staff was full of energy, all making our 2015 Co-Ed Youth Camp one to remember.  Make sure you read until the end to get the link to our camp Flickr page!

We had many returning faces along with a whole crew of new campers this year which made for a fun, hard working dynamic.

Take a look at our impressive coaching staff: 

Head Coaches: Laura Burnett-Kurie (Head Women's Soccer Coach at Gustavus), Benton Frayne (Assistant Women's Soccer Coach at Gustavus and DOC at Mankato United), Armando Oster (Club coach at Eden Prairie and Edina SC, Coach at East Ridge High School), Maggie Lane (Gustavus Alum '13, Head JV Coach at Marshall High School).

Assistant Coaches (current players at Gustavus): Anna Basil '16, Rachel Spiering '17, Ellyn Adelmann '18, Josie Mazzone '18, Emily Odermatt '18


Breaking Down the Soccer: 

SUNDAY: With the camp starting on Father's Day, Sunday started off with campus tours, ice breaker games and dinner at the coveted Evelyn Young Dining Hall.  The evening session kicked off with a 3v3 tournament followed by full sided games before an evening of pizza and getting to know our friends.

Evening Games! 

Combination Play

MONDAY: The morning session focused on combination play building to goal in small training groups led by a head coach and assistant coach.  After the morning session, the camp enjoyed free time where they were encouraged to swim in the pool!
The afternoon session focused on 1v1's, 2v1's, 2v2's (attacking and defending) with the entire camp coming together for relay races lead by Benton Frayne.  For the evening, we started out with 5v5 games before once again finishing with full sided competition.  The evening activity was to watch the USA Women's Soccer team play Colombia in the knock-out stage of the World Cup!

The Crew watching USA vs. Colombia in the World Cup!

TUESDAY: We started out with a camp game of Cream and Crackers before splitting up into our

Cream and Crackers

small training groups where we focused on Wide Play and Crossing and Finishing.  Again, the campers found themselves with free time where many enjoyed the free swim at the pool.  In the afternoon, we had a "Recovery" session where we played the camp favorites: Touch Ladders, Burger Ball and Touch Post followed by a camp game of World Cup!

Campfire with S'Mores

During the evening, we build to 8v8 games followed by full-field scrimmages before enjoying a campfire with S'Mores.  We had a Youth Camp record of 9 S'Mores consumed!





WEDNESDAY: Wednesday morning was all about our Street Soccer Competition where we played six 4v4 games with the teams changing between each game!  We capped off our morning session with our awards ceremony for our week long competitions!

Street Soccer Set Up!

Celebrating with their favorite Staff!

Camp Competitions Explained: 

With our camp theme of the Women's World Cup we had several competitions throughout the week.

To start we had our Theme Day competition with Monday's theme: Favorite Color and Crazy Sock Day; Tuesday's theme: Jersey Day; Wednesday: Camp T-Shirt Day.  Here are the winners:

Favorite Color and Crazy Sock Day

Jersey Day!

Next up, we had Women's World Cup trivia questions!  We had so many campers know the answers to the trivia questions sometimes we had to ask up to four questions to narrow down the winners! Here are the ultimate winners:

 Finally, we had our ultimate competition called the WORLD CUP.  On Sunday evening, we randomly chose teams of two who were assigned to represent a country who were currently participating or had previously participated in a Women's World Cup.  Every night when we played small sided games and full-sided scrimmages the campers could earn points towards their country.  After Wednesdays street soccer competition the final numbers were calculated and we had our top three:

3rd Place

2nd Place

1st Place and World Cup Champions!

Summary:  

Overall, we had a FANTASTIC youth camp! For more pictures please check out our Gustavus Flickr account at:
 https://www.flickr.com/photos/30678334@N08/sets/72157655070165515/

We loved having every camper there and hope they will all come back next year.  Don't forget to invite your friends!