KAILUA-KONA — High school soccer players from around the Big Island will have a golden opportunity to hone their craft at the Elite Sports LA. Advanced High School Training Camp, which will take place July 25-29 at the Old Airport Soccer Complex in Kona from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Not just a one-camp stop, Elite Sports LA wrapped up the ELITE Day Camp on Friday. Around 20 kids from six to 14 years old attended the five-day camp to workout with coaching and training specialists from California.
Elite Sports LA is led by Andrew Pearce, who is currently the head of the varsity high school program at The Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, California. He has also worked with the Olympic development team at Cal South and has helped out many California club soccer teams over the past 20 years.
Pearce is joined in Hawaii for the three camps by Gabe Penaloza and Rob Wright.
“Gabe coaches at the high school level, is a good club coach, and is also developing a semi-pro team in southern California,” Pearce said. “Rob is highly certified in strength training, conditioning and agility. He works with several athletes from different sports with sports specific training.”
The trio hopes to provide a different type of camp than most soccer players are used too. The camps, especially the high school camp, tries to focus more on the tactical side of soccer instead of the technical, choosing to work on formations and how to play for and against those formations.
“There are a lot of camps out there and we wanted to do something a little different,” Pearce said. “We are not just going to go through passing, shooting and dribbling. Kids can get that from anywhere. We will be really specific with strength training and agility, giving them pretty much a college based program that uses a lot of body weight workouts that focus on core strength and injury prevention.”
Pearce is hoping to get at least 22 kids to the high school camp which will allow the coaches to break down an entire 11-on-11 game.
“The camp is only three hours a day, we will work them really hard and then they will be done by 1 p.m. and they can go surfing in the afternoon,” Pearce said.
The Advanced High School Training Camp costs $125 per camper.
Elite Sports LA also offers a third camp called the Munchkin Soccer Adventure, which will be held July 25-29, running from 1:30-3 p.m. for kids (ages 4-6) just starting out in soccer. This camp costs $79 per camper.
For more information visit aysokona.com