The Yorkton United F.C. U14 Fury soccer team played in their second tournament of the indoor soccer season on the weekend of December 3-5. They traveled to Regina to compete in the REU Razz Indoor Soccer Tournament.
The first game was Friday night vs tournament hosts REU Santos.
The Fury walked away with 8-0 victory. In the second game played Saturday evening, the team faced Q.C. United from Regina, a team that the Yorkton squad was unable to defeat in any of last season's meetings, but this time the U14 Fury pulled off a 3-0 victory. The final round robin game for Yorkton was Sunday morning where they faced U.T.C. from Regina. Again, Yorkton shutdown their opposition, winning by a 7-0 count and thus gained a spot in the tournament final.
In this particular tournament, there were two pools and a cross over was played, meaning teams from pool A went up against teams from pool B.
A point system was used with each team earning six points for a win, a point for each goal up to three, and a point for a shutout with a maximum of 10 points each game.
Yorkton came out on top of their pool with 30 points (maximum number for any team).
The other two teams in our pool went undefeated as well but did not earn maximum points therefore the U14 Fury went on to face REU, (who finished first in their own pool) in the final even though both teams in Yorkton's pool had more points than REU.
The Fury defeated the host REU 4-0 in the final to earn them the gold medal.
Chad Grodzinski, one of the coaches of the Yorkton squad said via email to the paper that he was happy with the way things went but hinted that he would have preferred to play a team from his own pool.
"Although it would have been nice to play one of the other teams from our pool in the final as it may have been a tougher game I can't take anything away from the gold medal."
He added that according to the rules of the tournament, Yorkton did everything it needed to do to win.
"In the crossover tournament system you basically have to compete with the other teams in your pool by out playing the same opponents and we did just that."
The Fury got plenty of scoring support with their two veterans players, too, Grodzinski added.
I have to give a hand to two of our veteran forwards Matthew McKee and Jaden Porte as they scored most of the goals this tournament but more importantly they were well aware that it was important to come away with at least a 3-0 win each game for maximum points."
Also key in the win was the defence contributed by the rest of the team as well as help provide offensive pressure.
The player of the tournament recognition would have to go to goalkeeper Tyson Black who had four well- earned shutouts.
"Tyson also stopped two direct penalty shots in the tournament, one in the first game and one in the second game, to preserve his shutout. Those shutouts were key in securing first place. Tyson also made big saves when he needed to as well he was able to keep his penalty area clear of any loose balls. Another great weapon that Tyson has is his ball distribution. he does very well at making the right choice to move the ball either to our defence or forwards," Grodzinski closed.
