Six Kootenay South Youth Soccer Association teams travelled to Sandpoint, ID from Sept. 6 to 8 and competed in a tournament with over a hundred others from Idaho, Montana, Washington and B.C.
Kootenay South fielded six teams — including U13 and U14 girls and U10, U11, U13 and U14 boys — in the Pend Oreille Cup.
Making it out round-robin play to compete for medals, the U11 boys team had a tough battle in the semifinal grinding out a 2-1 victory, said Yuro Ihns, head coach.
"We then faced a tough opponent in the final, where we got down 2-0, made a game of it at 2-1, went down 4-1 but never gave up and battled to a 4-2 loss."
The U11 boys finished second in a group of 10 teams.
"I am very proud of what our team has accomplished as every member of the team contributed to our success," said Ihns. "Our motto was to never, ever give up and the boys battled to the last minute. It truly was an inspirational performance."
David Grantham, KSYSA Rep Director, said all the players had a great time in Sandpoint, but coming away on the winning side of the score was not often the case.
Grantham said age groups are defined in the Sandpoint Soccer Association as being born between August 1 of one year to July 31 of the next year, while in Canada the dates are January 1 to Dec 31.
"So in Sandpoint all our teams were forced to play up a year, so we were playing against older and bigger kids for the most part," said Grantham. "This closes out another great season for Kootenay South Youth Soccer Association Rep Teams, but KSYSA and the Vancouver Whitecaps will be in discussion on a possible fall program happening, so stay tuned for an update soon."
Full results for the tournament are found online at: www.sandpointsoccer.com/pocsch