Fury set to challenge for North American crowns

There was no sun in the sky when seven Ottawa Fury youth teams boarded planes early Thursday morning destined for Tampa, FL, but the Fury are hoping the Florida sun will shine favourably upon them in their annual quest for a North American Championship.


The Super Y-League’s (SYL) second ranked club put together an impressive 2011 regular season that will see a club-record seven Fury teams travel to this year’s SYL North American Finals. Capturing division titles to secure their berths in Tampa, were the U13 Boys (13-0-1), U15 Boys (11-1-3) and U16 Boys (13-1-0) who proved dominant at both ends of the pitch combining to outscore their opposition 161-22.

Also joining them in Tampa will be the U14 Boys (7-3-4) who will make their first SYL Finals appearance and the U17 Boys (10-2-0) who will look to pick up where they left off at last season’s finals. On the girls side the Fury will be represented by the U16 Girls (7-5-0) who make their second straight trip to the North American Championships while the U14 Girls will make their SYL Finals debut following a 7-4-3 season.

Last November the Fury U17 Girls, led by head coach Jimmy Zito, became the first Ottawa team to capture the North American Championship. This year the Fury, whose Boys Program was ranked #1 by the USL earlier this month, boast several squads capable of bringing another North American Title back to the Nation’s Capital. With Zito coaching three of the teams traveling to sunny F-L-A the Fury are hopeful that history repeats itself as Zito has twice already led teams to the Championship Game.

“You never want to go in there overconfident, but I think all of them have an opportunity to win,” Zito said in an interview with SportsOttawa.com. “With some timely goal scoring, good defensive shape, and the right amount of luck, anything is possible. It could happen.”

Zito noted it was quite the feat for the club to qualify each of its boys’ teams for the finals, but added that there’s still work to be done.

“It’s unbelievable,” Zito remarked. “But it’s one thing for us to qualify and another for us to go down there and beat the top teams.”

The Super-Y League finals run until Tuesday, Dec. 6.