Three visiting teams went home with all of the medals on Saturday but tournament organizer, Jeremy Smith, was still smiling, Tuesday. He had dared to organize a boys’ high school soccer tournament in mid-October… and there wasn’t a drop of rain to be seen. In fact, forecasters say we still won’t see any till next week.
“The biggest win was having such beautiful weather,” said Smith. “It was pretty exceptional.”
The sunshine might have had a positive effect on the players as well, as there wasn’t a yellow or red card given by the referees through 23 games. That was pretty exceptional, too.
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To keep the games on-schedule, no overtime was permitted for tie-breakers. They went straight to penalty kick shootouts.
“There might have been six or seven shootouts,” said Smith. “We had two ourselves, against Merritt and Nakusp.” In both cases, Hope came up short, though they avenged Friday’s loss to Merritt in the rubber match, Saturday.
The two schools have had many close games over the past three years and the trend continued last weekend.
Goals from Mateo Andrews and Reese Jones had Hope trailing 3-2 at the half, then with time winding down, Jones used his head for the tying goal, converting a Julius Brysch corner kick. Andrews followed with a low, hard shot that deflected off a defender, handcuffing the Merritt goalkeeper and putting Hope ahead 4-3.
Andrews then used speed and good positioning to shut down Merritt’s #7, who had the pace and ability to do some damage — if not for Andrews’ tenacity. The win gave Hope sixth place out of eight teams.
At the wrap-up, coach Smith acknowledged Andrews as one of Hope’s tournament MVPs, along with Jones, Jamie Dearden and Vinnie Pellegrino.
Mount Currie’s Xit’olacw (“Zee-toe-LACK-wa”) Community School edged out their neighbours, Pemberton, in the 1-0 championship match. Peter Skene Ogden Secondary of 100 Mile House outlasted Agassiz for third place.
100 Mile also had the best pre-game cheer, modeled after a Maori haka. The rest of the team circled two players in the middle. The scrum started with orchestrated grunting, then the middle pair would rise up and yell “Eagles!” then they’d duck down and the outer circle would rise up and yell “Eagles!” This went for seven cycles before the mob dispersed, grunting — and grinning. Great fun!
The Hope Mustangs had an abundance of extra players, so loaners were offered to teams that were short or had no subs. Creighton Tays stayed with the Cariboo team for all of their games, took part in their hakas — and went home with some hardware.
“Creighton was working pretty hard to razz the rest of us, because he got a medal and the rest didn’t,” said Smith.
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Tays brought his medal to school, Monday to tease his fellow Mustangs, who had been on the losing end of a 4-0 game while he was helping the Eagles.
“Everyone on my team called me ‘100 Mile’ at practice,” said Tays. “100 Mile was short players, so I volunteered for their team and the coach welcomed me. I felt like part of the team. They brought me in and showed me how to improve my playing and gave me more playing time. I loved playing for them.”
The outdoor season is now a wrap for the boys but they’ll be going to an indoor tournament at 100 Mile in late November.
“We’ll be hosting a girls’ indoor tournament, probably in February and our outdoor is usually in April,” added the coach.
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