By Brett Polan
The Quinte West Wolverines U13 team won back-to-back soccer tournament championships in Ancaster and Peterborough earlier this season.
Head Coach Bret Polan stated the majority of the players have stuck together while developing in the Ontario Soccer grassroots framework since they were eight years old.
This is the first year the team could compete with scores and standings.
“It’s been our goal to bring a championship home to Quinte West and we have done that in our first two tournaments of the year,” Polan said.
The first tournament win for the U13 Wolverines was the Ancaster Heritage Days Tournament. They started off the tournament by falling short to Alliance FC and Waterloo in the preliminary rounds, but knew they could create a three-way tie if they won against Guelph.
Quinte West did just that by defeating Guelph 3-0 as goalkeeper Jayden Polan got his first shutout of the season. The Wolverines would advance to the finals as they ranked second in the tournament due to the tie-breaker rules of goal differential.
As a result, the Wolverines faced Waterloo in the final and jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first half of the game. Waterloo would put some pressure on the Wolverines by getting a goal past goalkeeper Polan, cutting the deficit to one. The Wolverines answered back with two more goals making it a 4-1 final for the Quinte West club.
Coen Lowry scored four tournament game goals while John Korver tallied three and Gage Madore two.
Two weeks later, Quinte West’s U13 club entered the Peterborough City Challenge Cup Tournament against six other teams.
The Wolverines started strong with a 6-1 win over the Gloucester Hornets 6-1 in the opening contest.
In the second game, Cavan FC rallied from a three-goal deficit in the first half to defeat the Wolverines 4-3 with the winning goal coming in the final minutes of play.
Even though the Wolverines lost their second match, they ranked number one in their division getting them one of the byes into the semifinals the Sunday morning, letting the four other teams battle it out in the quarter finals.
The Gloucester Hornets weren’t quite done with the Wolverines after advancing to the semifinals following a win over Gladiator Soccer Academy in the quarterfinals.
The Hornets went up quickly on the Wolverines in the semifinals with a score of 2-0. In the dire moments of the game the Wolverines didn’t give up by tying the game at two in the final minutes to force a penalty kick tie-breaker.
Quinte West’s seventh shooter Jacob Carter ended the game with a beautiful goal on the Gloucester keeper advancing the Wolverines to the final, which featured a rematch against Cavan FC.
The Wolverines triumphed 3-1 to claim the championship.
Quinte West carried a 2-0 lead into the break, and then traded goals with Cavan in the second half. Lukas Kotsovos scored twice, including the game winner, while Korver notched the other marker for the Wolverines.
Midfielders Anderson Mol, Cohen Haley, Jonathon Tinney, John Schut and Carter did an amazing job shutting down the midfield by eliminating any opportunity for Cavan FC to take advantage.
After Cavan scored early in the second half to make things close, Lowry wasn’t accepting anything less than the championship title, and with the help of his teammates, and strong defence by defenders; Adrian Miller, Lowry, Andrew Dewar, Reid Haker, and Myles Furlotte while midfielder Lowry scored the insurance marker.
The Quinte West Wolverines walked away bringing home the second championship to the Quinte West Soccer Club.
When reflecting on the tournament championships, Coach Polan stated that he could not be prouder of the team as they have waited years for this moment. He mentioned that the defending from the midfielders and defenders didn’t go unrecognized throughout the tournaments.
Polan said the team showed the west region that Quinte West can compete against clubs from larger centres.
The Quinte West Wolverines play in the Southeast Ontario Soccer Association district league with their home games posted on the Quinte West Soccer Club’s Facebook page.
Since the two tournament wins, the U13 Wolverines compiled a record of six wins, one loss and one tie in league play by mid-August. They had scored 52 goals while allowing just 25 goals against.
Madore, a striker,was leading the SOSA league with the most goals scored with a total of 18 goals through eight games. Teammates Lowry had 11 and Korver 5. Goalkeeper Polan had registered fourth shutout of the year and his first in the SOSA League.
Coach Polan praised the Quinte West organization’s head coach Steve Whitehead and rep liaison Jeff Armstrong, who “have been our biggest supporters since developing these boys since eight years old. My goal is to continue to develop these players with the advice and support from these two coaches.”
“What’s amazing about this Quinte West soccer community is the love for the game and those who come help develop our team with higher coach to player ratios at practices this year from volunteers such as coaches Jakob Schinke, Tony Haker, Joe Miller, Shawn Tinney, and Adam Haley.”
Team members are Adrian Miller, Anderson Mol, Andrew Dewar, Coen Lowry, Cohen Haley, Gage Madore, Jacob Carter, Jayden Polan, John Korver, John Schut, Jonathon Tinney, Landin Ross, Lukas Kotsovos, Lukas Kovacevic, Myles Furlotte and Reid Haker.
Joining coach Bret Polan are assistant coaches Jakob Schinke and Shawn Tinney and managers Tara Madore and Sabrina Polan.
Check out Quinte West Soccer at quintewestsoccerclub.com and on Facebook: @QuinteWestSoccer