The Peter Skene Ogden Eagles senior boys’ soccer team opened their season with a successful Icebreaker tournament at Merritt Secondary School last weekend, Sept. 15-16.
The Eagles are in a rebuilding phase this year after losing eight of their 11 starting players to graduation, but managed to come away from the weekend with a winning record.
“Only having three starters from last year returning, I knew this season would be a challenge but the boys really battled hard and everyone stepped up their game,” said Eagles coach Sean Glanville. “We had six players who took part in their first ever school tournament and they all improved with each game.”
In game one, Friday afternoon the Eagles’ opponents Pemberton Secondary could only salvage nine players so the Eagles earned a 1-0 default win as the teams decided to borrow players and have a competitive scrimmage.
In game two, the Eagles played a very strong team from Mount Currie and battled to a hard-fought 0-0 draw. Stephan Theodore-Jensen earned the shutout in goal for the Eagles and the backline of Adam Sullivan, Ryan Sullivan, Eric Schuurman and Levi McQueen was solid all game long.
In game three on Saturday, PSO took on hosts Merritt and jumped out to a quick start as captain Cameron Ardiel was taken down inside the penalty area and scored on the ensuing penalty shot to put the Eagles up 1-0.
PSO had many chances to add to their lead but couldn’t capitalize which proved costly as Merritt scored just before half time to tie things up 1-1.
Merritt would go on to score a pair of late goals to hand the Eagles a 3-1 defeat.
PSO bounced back in their final game to down Hope Secondary 3-1. Lee Machete opened the scoring with a beautiful full-volley off of an Ardiel corner kick to make it 1-0. Kurt Wandler had a great game and notched both the second and third goals for the Eagles on great individual efforts to extend the lead to 3-0. Hope scored a late marker to end PSO’s shutout bid.
Other Eagles’ making solid contributions to the squad included Cameron Amut, Kieran Emery, Hunter O’Connor, Lynden Walker, and Josh Hutchins.
The next action for the Eagles is the 10-team Hope Secondary Tournament taking place September 29-30.