Two Yorkton soccer teams travelled to the Winnipeg Golden Boy Indoor Soccer Tournament, February 14 to 17 and both teams represented Yorkton very well.
The Under 10 Yorkton United Sonics and the Under 12 Yorkton United Chelsea teams joined over 200 teams from Ontario and Manitoba for the nearly week long tournament.
Yorkton United Chelsea U12 boys played in the Manitoba U14 category which pitted them against teams between one and two years older than Saskatchewan U12 players.
Yorkton was definitely punching above its weight in the tournament and did extremely well.
Yorkton's first match was against Winnipeg's WSEU DeRosa who, at the end of January, won first place in the Regina Winterfest Tournament in the U14 Premier Division.
The younger Yorkton Chelsea narrowly lost the match 1-0 to the powerhouse DeRosa club.
The last match of the Winnipeg tournament saw Yorkton go up against Winnipeg's Phoenix Blue.
Again, United Chelsea were not able to capitalize on several chances and came up only one goal short in a 3-2 loss. Phoenix Blue went on to win U12 silver in the Golden Boy Tournament.
Yorkton Chelsea head coach Mike Jakubiec, said his boys played amazingly well. "The bigger Winnipeg teams didn't know what hit them. Our boys left everything they had on the field. They can be very proud of how they played."
The U10 Yorkton United Sonics competed in their appropriate age category to capture Silver.
Coach Benno Looft led the boys to Monday's final with 4-3, 12-1 and 3-1 victories over Winnipeg teams.
They met up with Thunder Bay, Ontario's Chill Academy White who hadn't been scored on in the tournament until they met the Sonics.
The Yorkton boys outshot and outpassed Thunder Bay, especially in the second half, but the goals simply didn't come.
Thunder Bay came out on top 4-2.
Scoring for Yorkton in the final were Justin Adam and Amish Tripathy. Noah Schneider did an excellent job in goal.
Looft was extremely proud of his players. He explained that as the tournament went on, they just kept getting better and more intense. In the final, he explained that "the boys' passing was beautiful and their pressure on the net was something else."
Both Jakubiec and Looft were pleased with the results of the tournament as well as with the experience it offered to both teams. They both consider this as an excellent conclusion to the indoor season and as great preparation for the upcoming outdoor season.
Both teams are preparing to play in the Regina league once again as well as attend tournaments in Regina and Winnipeg.
Yorkton is also planning to field a U12 boys team to play in the month-long Regina World Cup Tournament which takes place from April 4 to 28.
Teams choose a country to represent and will play four games plus semi-finals and finals throughout the month at Regina's indoor soccer Event Plex.
