The Humboldt Hurricanes U16 Boys Soccer Team captured the Soccer 4 Life 6 Aside Youth Indoor Soccer Provincial Championships in Regina. The tournament ran from Feb. 26-28 and was a six on six tournament featuring five players and a goalie on each team.
While technically a U16 boys team the Hurricanes had to make a special arrangement this year to field their team as they have two females who are born in 2001, three males born in 2002 and another male born in 2003.
The age limit for the U16 team is any player born in the year 2000 or later meaning the team has four underage players currently on their roster and two girls as well.
Hurricanes Head Coach, Jesse Schwartz, said winning the provincial championship was a great feeling for him and the team, especially beating Lloydminster, who were provincial champions last year, and Moose Jaw.
“It was really nice to compete with those teams. Definitely being from Humboldt and we don’t just pick a team we have a team so it’s kind of a little different situation at this age so it was an awesome feeling.”
The Hurricanes enjoyed a very successful tournament finishing with a 5-0 record and a plus 18-goal differential after outscoring the opposition 23-5.
Schwartz said he was really pleased with his teams efforts during the tournament saying his team played phenomenally.
“We went with a relatively large bench and it worked out for us, everybody got a chance to play and we really played well.”
Schwartz said that taking to relatively large bench was beneficial to all the players.
“We didn’t want to leave anybody out going into the tournament because of our situation as a team, because of playoffs… we felt it was necessary to take everybody and give it our best shot.”
The win at the provincial championship was the Hurricanes’ second six on six championship of the season as the team has yet to lose a six on six game all winter.
Despite winning another tournament championship and remaining undefeated on the season thus far in six on six competition Schwartz says the team is committed to winning even more championships.
“The kids said too this isn’t going to be the last one they win, they all told me ‘this was great but we have more to win yet.’ That just tells me they want to keep playing.”
