The Okanagan Mission senior boys soccer team are off to provincials after continuing a historic season by winning the Okanagan Valley AA high school soccer championships.
The OKM senior boys won the valley championship and one of the oldest soccer trophies in the Okanakan Valley, the championship cup that dates back to the 1930’s.
The Huskies completed an unbeaten season, outscoring its opponents 103-13, and dominating the AA Okanagan Valley league.
OKM represented the local school district in a six team Valley Championship last weekendFinal on Friday and Saturday 2-3 November, they were drawn in a 3 team pool with Westsyde (Kamloops) and Kalamalka and won both games to progress to the semi finals scoring 11 goal to 1 against. In the semi final they were matched with Sa-Hali (Kamloops) who had won both the Valleys and Provincial final 2 years ago. The teams were very well match and it was a very close game with both team trying to find a weakness to exploit, with 20 minutes gone in the first half captain Andy Stevenson started and finished an excellent move to put OKM in front 1-0. Sa Hali pressed hard for the equalizer and just before half time a moment of brilliance from their midfielder Brodie Osborne tied the game game 1-1. In the second half the Huskies piled on the pressure and came close a number of time, with only 15 minutes remaining Wagner was brought down in the penalty area and Mackenzie Rigg stepped forward to fire the Huskies into the lead, Ben Mcdonald later scored a third to put the Huskies into the final with a 3-1 win.
The final was against Summerland who had recently pushed the Huskies very hard in a BC open tournament with the final being forced to a penalty shoot out which OKM went on to win, however the re-match was a one sided game which the Huskies dominated and won 7-0 to become Valley Champions again with goals from Fielding x2, Wagner x2, Nanci, Thom. The quality of play from OKM in the final game underlines the strength of the squad as they were without regular starters, Shanks, Overton, and Young due to injury.
OKM Huskies now head off to the Provincial finals in Burnaby 19th -21st November where they will have earned a high seeding position as one the top teams in the Championship. The finals will consist of the top 16 teams in BC and OKM will be hoping to improve on the 3rd place they achieved in 2011. The full squad is: Mike Sexton, Dan Perry, Jordan Powers, Quintin Torrensan, Walker Shanks, Joe Overton, Alex Beutle, Ben McDonald, Jesse Nanci, Mackenzie Rigg, Matt Fielding, Keevin Lee, Spencer Young, Dylan Wagner, Andrew Stevenson, David Denton, Braden Peters, Arpan Kandola, Rafa Gutierrez, Malte Thom
