On November 21st and 22nd the Dayton Dutch Lions FC held their first open try outs for the 2016 PDL season. A group of 45 aspiring players attended the Saturday session.
The day started with a presentation given by the club's Director of Soccer and Head Coach Sid van Druenen followed by a 90 minute training session with a passing drill, possession games and small sided games. GK's got to work separately with the club's GK coach.
At noon everyone enjoyed lunch sponsored by Chipotle and at 1.30pm the 11v11 games started and 20 players where selected for day two of the try outs.
On Sunday the session ran from 10.00am to 1.00pm giving the opportunity to the coaching staff to get a good look at the players that impressed on Saturday. Players where run through some drills and the session ended with a 11v11 game.
Coach van Druenen after the try outs had the following to say "It was a good turn out and I see us inviting some of these guys to be part of our roster for the summer." van Druenen continued,"We play in one of the hardest conferences in the PDL and it's very important for us to build a strong roster so we can be competitive in every game. We don't want to make our decisions regarding players to quick but I would like to have about 15 players committed to our program by the end of this year, some of those players will come out of this try out and some are players that we have recruited from the many college games we visited this Fall."
The Dayton Dutch Lions FC will host a second try out in April of 2016. Dates and times for that try out will be announced on our website soon.