Submitted by Carryn Berk
The U15 Division 2 Valley United Boys Soccer Team played their hearts out this past weekend in the Hollandia Off The Wall tournament, and their efforts paid off bringing home a silver medal. This was an exciting new experience for most of the boys as this tournament is always played at the Henk Ruys soccer center on a boarded field, similar to a hockey rink. We started off the tournament against one of our league rivals who are currently the top team in our Saskatoon youth division. They were the favorite to win this tournament. Our boys came out strong and shocked the bigger Hollandia Sparks team by scoring an early goal and taking a 1-0 lead to end the half. With the Hollandia Sparks team having a bit more experience and size they capitalized on some good bounces and ended up winning the game 3-1.
For any chance to move on to the final the boys would need to win our last two round robin games with the next game being played against a U17 Division 3 Hollandia team. Our boys fought hard and played well holding on to a 3-2 win giving them a good chance of making it to the final.
Our third round robin game was against Nipawin. The boys came out a bit flat resulting in a goal against early in the game. This woke the boys up and they started making crisper passes and smarter decisions. They ended up winning this game 6-2 which put them in the final. This would be a rematch against the previously played Hollandia Sparks team. In the final both teams came out ready to play. You could tell that each team was more comfortable with the use of the boards as they were now playing their fourth game in this new style of soccer. Hollandia scored first with Valley tying things up a few minutes later. Each team took turns scoring their second goals with Hollandia getting two more quick goals to take a 4-2 lead into the half. Our boys came out strong in the second scoring two immediate goals to tie the game at four a piece. The scoring kept coming by both teams but the boys just ran out of steam ending the game with a 7-5 loss.
This was an extremely entertaining and fast paced tournament for the coaches and all the fans who came out to watch this past weekend!! We couldn’t be more proud of these boys on how they played and how quickly they learned a new style of soccer in such a short period of time. Congratulations to the U15 Division 2 Boys Soccer Team.
