The Kwalikum Kondors senior soccer team is on their way to the provincials after a second place finish at the Island championships.
After an undefeated regular season and going through the North Island championships without a goal against, the Kondors were in action at UVic for the Island championships. Winning their pool, KSS found themselves in the final against Saint Michaels University School, Victoria.
With the top three teams in the tournament headed to provincials, the Kondors had a berth, it was only a matter of position.
In the end, the Kondors found themselves on the losing end of a tight 2-1 game against the Blue Devils from Victoria.
“I’m very proud of these boys,” head coach Butch Gayton said. “We were able to do lots of good things this season leading up to this tournament and to be able to come through like we wanted to, we’re feeling very good about ourselves right now.”
In pool play, the Kondors were up against Brentwood College in their first match on Monday. Daniel Doukakis opened the scoring for KSS as they finished 1-1. Game two Monday came against the Isfeld Ice (Comox). Jake Watson found the back of the net twice for the Kondors, fueling the offense in game two as they’d go on to win 2-1.
“I thought we handled two games in one day well,” Gayton said. “Our first game, we didn’t come out as sharp as we wanted to and found ourselves behind for the first time in a while. We battled back and earned a hard- fought tie, so at least we didn’t shoot ourselves in the foot. We came around in game two, managed to get two excellent goals from Jake Watson and held on for that all-important win. We headed into Tuesday with our future in our hands.”
Tuesday produced a different atmosphere with the Kondors needing a tie to capture first place in the pool and earn a berth in the provincials. They came out fired up against the Royal Bay Ravens.
Cedric “The Lion” Leonhardt got it started for the Kondors, putting home a header to open scoring. Tyler Lucente, Jake Wittenburg and Doukakis rounded out scoring for KSS, giving them a 4-1 victory and a spot in the provincials.
“What a great feeling,” Gayton said. “We had a caravan of fans coming out in support both days with alumni, family, friends, parents and the moms all down to cheer us on. So being able to share that with everyone was an amazing feeling,” Gayton said.
“There was such a feeling of excitement and relief all at once that came over us. We set out to accomplish what we had wanted to do from the start of the season and now we’re heading to the provincials to see what else we can do this year.”