While they didn’t get off to a great start this season, the Penticton Pinnacles FC U15 boys rebounded in a big way at the Thompson Okanagan Youth Soccer League (TOYSL) playdowns on the weekend.
The Pinns’ ninth win in a row was a 2-0 shutout Sunday over the Kamloops Blaze P in the finals Sunday at Kings Park to win the championship.
They shutout Kamloops Blaze L 3-0 the day before in the semifinals and now advance to the provincials in Burnaby July 5 to 8.
After losing their first three games of the regular season, Penticton won their next seven league starts — giving up just three goals while scoring 24 of their own.
“I don’t know what happened in those (first three) games. They showed good promise; they had 70 per cent of the ball in most of those games. They just didn’t put the ball in the net,” said team manager Chris Moore. “Over the season, they always had it in them, they started passing better and got to the point were they just started to see each other.”
Penticton goes into the provincials as the first seed.
“It’ll be tough because we don’t see the coast teams very often, but then they don’t see us very often either,” said Moore.
In the final game Sunday it was Jaras Grant scoring the first goal in the opening half on a pass from Connor Moore and Grant returned the favour in the second half, sending Moore away on a breakaway for what proved to be the winning goal. Blaze added one before full time.
In the semifinal, Grant scored a pair of goals with Jake Erickson potting a single.
In addition to the provincials, four members of the Pinns — Moore, Chris MacDonald, Brett Gautschi and Marc Peron — are going to the B.C. Summer Games held in Cowichan later in July.
Moore has also been chosen to go to Rotterdam in the Netherlands as part of the youth soccer program.
Two other teams from Penticton were also competing in the playdowns: the girls U18 team lost to the Kamloops Blaze 3-1 in the final and the girls U17 lost a heartbreaker in the semis 3-2 to Shuswap.
