Heavy rains may have wreaked havoc on Sunday, but some forward-thinking scheduling on the part of organizers Saturday helped salvage one of this area’s largest and longest running soccer tournaments.
Thirty-nine boys and girls teams in the U11 and U12 age groups — that’s almost 600 players plus coaches and parents — converged on Parksville last weekend for the Nanaimo and District Youth Soccer Association’s big annual year-end tournament, played out primarily at Springwood Park.
“It was such a beautiful day yesterday we actually ended up going until 5:30 and got lots of games in,” Oceanside Youth Soccer administrator and tournament co-ordinator Mike Cochrane said Sunday night, explaining that with rain in the forecast they pressed the pitches at Arrowview Elementary School and Parksville Community Park into service as well on Saturday, which translated into seven fields and 43 games played.
“We got all the round robin games in and some of the semifinals got played Sunday morning before we finally had to say enough was enough,” said Cochrane.
Oceanside fielded three teams in the U11 Boys division, one in the U11 Girls, one in the U12 Boys and one in the 10-team U12 Girls.
Oceanside’s plucky U11 Girls team, the Lightning Bolts, may want to change their name to The Troopers as they were part of the only division to complete both round robin and playoffs. The Bolts played two games on Saturday, posting a win and a loss, then battled the Blue Thunder in the cold driving rain on Sunday to bag the bronze medal.
The tournament was called after their game because of the rain and muck which was just fine by some of the teams who had already packed up and headed home.
“The trouble is it’s not finished,” said Cochrane, explaining they are now looking at finishing the tournament at either Merle Logan fields in Nanaimo or at the new Ladysmith turf fields.
Oceanside has three teams that have made it to the final six in the U11 Boys division. The U12’s were able to get some of their finals in; on the boys side of the draw Oceanside #1 won their pool and beat Nanaimo #3 3-1 Sunday morning which leaves them in the hunt for gold. The U12 girls played a double knockout and are down to two teams vying for gold — one of them from Oceanside.
“It was wet today, that’s for sure,” Lightning Bolts’ coach Kevin Spicer said Sunday night, adding, “I think the weather was harder on the parents standing around though.
“You avoid them when you can,” he chuckled when asked about the conditions, “but when it’s all done you realize how much fun it was ... it’s just a game, and the kids had a great time.”