June 10 -- Playing through the regular season in the Suburban Friendship League’s (SFL) 2nd Dvision, the two BRYC squads finished  with disappointing records, but there’s always a chance for redemption in the SFL’s season-ending tournament, formatted to pit teams with similar regular season results against each other.  It gives everyone an equal chance at finishing the season with a victory or two.  Both squads of BRYC boys did better than that!  Indeed, after finishing the regular season with only two wins between them, Heyer’s and Ramirez’s boys each went 3-0-0 in the two day tournament to win Championship trophies.  Congratulations to both coaches and all the boys for ending the season on such a high note.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coach Heyer, his U19 Boys, and their families

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coach Ramirez, U19 boys, and their trophies

Meanwhile Coaches Bob Brennnis and John Kelleher’s U19B "Strykers" played in the SFL’s highly regarded 1st Division, and finished the regular season with a record of 7 wins against just 3 losses to finish 5th of 21 teams.  They had to play in a tournament division that included the four teams who were ranked above them, including a powerful squad from Soccer on the Hill (SOTH) who had finished the regular season with a record of 7-0-0, outscoring their opponents 28-4, and a squad from Annandale (ABGC) with a record of 6-1-1 who had lost only to SOTH, plus a couple of squads from Prince William (PWSI) with equally impressive records.  

After falling to SOTH by a final score of 2-4 on Saturday morning (only the second team all season to score two goals against them), the BRYC boys came back strong in the afternoon with their most powerful offensive performance of the season to thrash one of the Prince William teams by a score of 7-0, setting themselves up for a match against Annandale on Sunday that could determine who would take both first and second place trophies.  Sadly, the second team from PWSI failed to show up for their game against SOTH.  Annandale, who had lost to SOTH during the regular season by a score of 1-0, the toughest win of the season for the undefeated team, desperately wanted to play them again. 

Coaches Brennis and Kelleher magnanimously deferred, and watched Annandale go down to a 0-2 defeat in a very physical and confrontational game.  Nonetheless, by virtue of their close loss, ABGC took second place, SOTH took first, and BRYC was only left to ponder what might have been, but nonetheless finished the SFL season with honor and with an impressive record of 8-4 going into the FPYC tpurnament the following weekend.

Congratulations to all three of the U19 Boys teams for their season-ending successes.