By Josh Bell They got one step closer to glory, but for the Ottawa Fury under-14 boys’ soccer team, the last missing piece was agonizing.
Competing at the Dec. 7-11 USL Super-Y League Finals in Bradenton, Florida, the Fury made it past the semi-finals thanks to a 7-6 victory on penalties against the Cleveland Internationals, but couldn’t turn the shootout trick twice, falling in the North American championship match 5-4 to Ironbound SC on penalties.
“The boys gave me everything they possibly could and then some,” says Fury coach Jimmy Zito. “They put their heart and soul into every game. I couldn’t ask for a better group.”
The Fury went into the tournament with a 10-1-2 record from summertime play, when they finished first in the New England division. They opened with 4-0 and 1-0 shutout wins against the Westchester Flames and the Virginia Alliance to clinch a spot in the semis before losing 2-1 to Orlando City Youth in their final group match.
The first two games made it clear that the boys were there for the gold medal, Zito underlines.
“Everything came together well, we could do no wrong,” he recounts. “It was meant to be for us, but because of injuries it unfortunately wasn’t.”
In the second contest, the injury bug attacked key players Jack Wadden and Jackson Pickard, among others. Another injury to centre back Yannick Sigouin would further hurt the Fury’s chances, but the team still played very well despite the loss in the final, Zito reflects.
“I think that our biggest issue was that the other team had more recovery time before the championship game,” says Zito, who coached a girls’ team to the club’s first Super-Y League title several years ago but was stopped just short of the historic first boys’ title this year. “We had a centreback, [Sigouin], go down motionless in the semis and that delayed the game for 20 minutes. It was all just very unfortunate.”
Zito, whose team lost out in the semi-finals last season, expects to coach the same group of boys next year, when they’ll take a crack at now moving up from silver to gold.
The U13, U15 and U16 Fury boys also competed in Florida but did not advance through the group stage.