18 Teams Competed, 2 Finish at Region I Champions
Soccer News: New Jersey Youth Soccer congratulates the eighteen teams that competed at the US Youth Soccer Region I Championship Series in Barboursville, West Virginia. In all, the NJ teams collected an impressive 37 wins, 20 losses and 7 draws.
PDA Drogba (U12 Boys) and NJ Stallions (U17 Girls) marched through group play and the knock out stage, completing the tournament as regional champions in their respective age groups. The NJ Stallions will continue their question in Tulsa, OK later this month at the national stage of the competition.
The U12 Boys final was a rematch of the group play game between Lynbrook/East Rockaway SC Sting (NY-E) and PDA Drogba. This game was no different than the first as PDA repeated their 5-0 victory. It was an all-around effort from PDA as they had five different goal scorers. Stephen Duncan, Eric Watt and Dylan Kronick all scored in the first 30 minutes with Adam Berrocal and Stas Korzeniowski adding goals in the 32nd and 46th minutes respectively.
After just missing qualifying for Nationals via the National League, NJ Stallions Dynamite (NJ) needed a win in order to advance to Tulsa. It didn’t look good early when their opponents knocked in an early free kick to take a 1-0 lead. The Stallions answered back when Tomison Kennedy got taken down in the box and was awarded a penalty kick. Shannon Burns stepped up and boomed her PK passed the keeper to even the score. Stallions would take the lead just two minutes later when Ida DiClemente received the ball behind the defense and slotted her shot to bring the score to 2-1. Their opponents equalized and battled through the second half until Kristen Vinciguerra headed home an Olivia Szeker-Cortes cross to bring the final score to 3-2.
NJ Rush Blue (U12 Girls) advanced all the way to the finals where the team lost 2-1 but return home with silver medals. Match Fit Academy (U16 Boys), PDA Kaka White (U13 Boys), NJ Rush (U12 Boys) and PDA United (U18 Girls) also experienced success advancing through the challenging group stage and coming home with bronze medals.
PDA Donovan (U14 Boys), Mainland United Lightning (U15 Boys), PDA Pele (U17 Boys), Ironbound SC Elite (U18 Boys), PDA McGeough (U19 Boys), NJ Wildcats Averbuch (U13 Girls), NJ Stallions Freedom (U14 Girls), SDFC Panthera (U15 Girls), STA Morris United (U16 Girls), FC Copa Celeste (U16 Girls), US Parma Liberta (U19 Girls) also proudly represented NJ Youth Soccer after winning their respective state groups.
