UMSC All Star Select

U-MSC All Star Girls U-14 bring home Championship at Lake Simcoe Tournament

Congratulation to U-MSC GU-14 team for winning the Lake Simcoe Tournament!

The girls won their qualifying round by 2-0, 2-0, 1-0 and finally winning their final championship game by 5-0. The girls played an amazing game shutting out the tournament. “Watching the girls play in this tournament was like listening to a beautiful piece of music, they were all in synch”, said the coaching staff Alfie Ng and Philip Chow; or as the girls would say, “Listening to the Jonas Brothers sing”.

You cannot go through a tournament by not giving up one goal without a solid defense. Our defense was a force to be reckoned with. The defensive team of Kristin Dass, Melanie Ng, Celine Yu and Wessal Omarkhail were like the “Great Wall of China”. Whenever the ball hit, it bounced back. When the frustrated opponent finally struck hard enough and punched a hole through the Great Wall of China, our impenetrable Goal Keeper was there to say “No Way, Jose”!, and stopped every shot directed at the net. A very special “thank you” goes to Nicole Tortorici, Esin Uner and Tiffany Chow for “volunteering” to play goalie, and for performing flawlessly as the last line of defense. Our goal keepers had only one goal and that was to deny the opponent of theirs and denied them they did.

People say Soccer is a beautiful sport, and this beauty is exemplified by our “Play Makers”, the Mid-fielders; Vanessa Barnwell, Lidia Tortorici, Nicole Tortorici, Nicole Samara, Lauren Mah and Tiffany Chow. They were there to support the defense, and set up the Forward for the final finish.

You cannot loose a game if you don’t let in a goal, and you cannot win unless you get a goal. When it came to making it count, the speed of Marissa Chin and Alex Lowe, the powerful kick of Harleen Nijjar, the accuracy of our “lefty” Mary Kathleen Spray and Esin Uner played the finale notes to a beautiful song by putting that ball into the net, scoring a total of 10 goals in the tournament.

UMSC GU18 All Star Wins Greece All Star Tournament

CONGRATULATIONS to the UMSC girls' team under 18 for winning the Greece All Star tournament. The only Canadian team in the group, the tournament was held in Greece N.Y. The UMSC GU18 strikers were successful in placing first among a group of 6 teams. This was the result of dedication and commitment from the players.

- Coach Chris Misketis, Assistant coach Rob Cummings and Team Manager Greg Giannidis

UMSC BU14 All Star wins Albert Campbell All-Star Tournament

The Albert Campbell Tournament was played on the weekend of September 16 & 17 throughout various soccer fields in Scarborough.

The coaching staff; Philip Kardaras, Pat Gismondi and Andy Fuentes, would like to congratulate and thank all the players: Michael Muzzatti, Joshua Lowe, Darien Pun, Terrance Yiu, Kent Leslie, Rajakeirthan Arunthavaraph, Michael Gismondi, Robert Kardaras, Ryan Singleton D’arcy, Jonathan Suckling, Willy Scarrow, Alan Ang, Kenny Fuentes, Sinthuran Yogaratnam, Andrew Sulaiman and Ryan Ng on winning the Albert Campbell Tournament.

The UMSC All Star Strikers played 3 games on Saturday starting with the Clairlea-Westview, a team we had played in the Unionville tournament that ended in a 1-0 win for the Strikers. This time the game ended in a 0-0 tie after a tight and well-played game by both squads. The second match was against Darlington who played a good game but the UMSC Strikers out played their opponent by using great teamwork and good passes. The scoring started with a nicely placed ball by Joshua Lowe followed with one by Bobby Kardaras, they both went on to score another goal each. Terrance Yiu and Ryan Singleton each added to the tally. The team went on to win this game by a score of 6-1.

After a long day we started our 3rd and last game against CCH - Colborne. We knew that we needed a win to play in the finals on Sunday so the players went on the field with determination. Shortly after the game started the Strikers was up 2-0. With good passes and un-selfish playing by our team we went on to take the game 9-0. What was surprising about this game was not the fact that UMSC won by such a large margin, but the fact that at no time during the game was there any attempt by the other team to play unfair or to voluntarily foul the players. It was a very clean and well refereed game. The referee approached both benches requesting to end this game with 10 minutes left, seeing that where was no need to continue after such a big lead, but the players on both sides wanted to play on, and so it did, after we switched some players on both sides, they continued until the final whistle by the referee. In the words of the referee to both coaching benches "I have never had so much fun refereeing a game as I just did in these last 10 minutes. I want to congratulate both teams for having such great kids, for playing such a clean game and having so much fun." The coaching staff and the players of the UMSC All Star team take off our hats to the team of CCH - Colborne.

Our win put us through to the finals on Sunday against Clairlea-Westview. The All Star Strikers knew we had a good chance to win this game but would have to play a solid game with good passes. Our team came out firing on all cylinders and created a few chances to score but they had excellent goaltending. The Clairlea team took over the match halfway through the 1st period and had their chances cut short by our defense. It was an exchange of excellent passes and shots on goal but the 1st half ended in a 0-0 tie. The 2nd half was no different that the first, full of good shots and close calls by both teams. With 10 minutes left to go and looking at overtime, Alan Ang came down the right wing and crossed to the middle where, Bobby Kardaras, deflected the ball with his head to the back post away from the goalie and scored our 1st goal of the game.
The Clairlea team came on strong knowing they had to tie to extend the game or settle for second. Our defense and mid-field took over and kept the opponent at bay. The game ended with a 1-0 win for the UMSC BU14 All Star Strikers and our first tournament win after being finalist in the previous two tournaments.

Once again, our thanks go out to all the parents for being there and supporting both the coaches and the players all season. Our thanks to Philip Chow for getting us registered in all these tournaments this year as well as to Doug and Henry for getting our passports and other paperwork registered and back to us in time so that our kids would be able to play.

BU-14 All Star Team Sub-Champion in Oshawa NASC All-Star/Select Invitational Tournament held on the weekend of August 12^th & 13^th.

Before we get started, we the coaching staff of the Unionville Strikers BU-14 All Star Team would like to thank each and every player and their parents for their great effort and support in last weekend’s nail biting, nerve-racking Oshawa NASC soccer tournament. The boys were all very nervous as we met the evening before their very first tournament. They only had three weeks to prepare for this weekend and felt that they were not ready. We assured them that we had a great deal of talent on our team and our road to winning would be to play our game and not get caught playing the other teams game.

Saturday morning with nerves on end and with only two subs, we started the first game against a well-prepared and undefeated Oshawa BU-14 team. Our team struck first and Ryan Singleton scored our first goal of the tournament. The Oshawa team came on strong and in the dying minutes of the game. They took a shot that was heading straight for the upper corner of the goal, an unstoppable shot, when out of nowhere the hand of our goalie, Michael Muzzatti, deflected the ball wide of the goal preserving a 1-0 win in our first game and earning him the Most Sportsman Medal from the other team coaching staff.

The players were pumped up for our second game that afternoon against the Tweed Titans. It was a nervous start for both teams but our boys settled in and playing their game, were able to score 5 times while keeping our goal undefeated. The goals were scored by Robert Kardaras (Bobby) – 2 goals , Jonathan Suckling - 1 goal, Rajakeirthan Arunthavaraph - 1 goal and Terrance Yiu - 1 goal. Joshua Lowe played an excellent game earning him the Most Sportsman Medal.

With 2 wins, 6 points, 6 goals in favour and 0 against we were in first place and waiting for the winner of the wildcard game later that afternoon to see which team we would be playing Sunday morning.

Our Sunday game was against the Oshawa BU-13 team, the score was 1-0 in our favour after the 1^st half. We went on to win this game 3-0. The goals were scored by Michael Gismondi, Ryan Singleton and Bobby Kardaras. The Most Sportsman Medal was awarded to Rajakeirthan Arunthavaraph.

This win, gave our Strikers a birth in the finals against the Oshawa BU-14 team whom we had faced on Saturday morning, we all knew it was going to be a tuff game.

Unionville struck first once again with the goal being scored by Raj and we were up 1-0 by the end of the first half. The Oshawa team kept pushing and finally was able to score the equalizer in the second half, five minutes later on a failed attempt by our team to reject the ball from a corner kick the Oshawa team scored again putting them up 2-1. The boys were devastated but we, the coaches, knew the talent we had on this team and encouraged them to not give up and this was their game. Regrouping, they went right back at their opponent and in the last 5 minutes of the game Andrew Sulaiman, hungry for a goal, scored off a cornerkick, which tied the game, sending it into overtime. We should mention that once again our goalie, Michael, came through in the second half saving his goal from defeat in 3 or 4 opportunities, which earned him the Most Sportsman Medal again from the Oshawa team.

At the end of two 5-minute overtime periods the game was still tied 2-2. The game came down to 5 penalty shots per team, after which we were still tied with both teams having scored 3 goals a piece. It was now sudden death penalty shots. It took 10 players from each team before the game was decided by the winning goal from the Oshawa BU-14 team.

All this time, the parents and spectators on the sideline were cheering on both teams and groaning on every fail goal attempt, everyone was nervous.

It was a gut wrenching loss and the boys were depressed. We told them that they were winners and they should hold their heads up high for they were the only team to give the Oshawa team a loss this year, and our team was the only undefeated team in the tournament.

The coaching staff made sure the players were aware of this and how proud we were of all of them, we had won this tournament no matter what the outcome was after the penalty shots.

Upon awarding the trophies, the Oshawa NASC officials commended both teams for the excellent playing. “It was the longest, most exciting and nerve racking game that has ever been played in the history of our tournament.”

On a very sportsman note on behalf of the BU-14 UMSC Strikers they parted with a “See you in Unionville”.

The coaching staff, Philip Kardaras, Pat Gismondi and Andy Fuentes, would like to thank all the players:

Andrew Sulaiman, Kenny Fuentes, Alan Ang, Kent Leslie , Darien Pun, Joshua Lowe, Ryan Singleton, Jonathan Suckling, Robert Kardaras, Michael Gismondi, Rajakeirthan Arunthavaraph, Terrance Yiu and goaltender Michael Muzzatti.

For their time and dedication to their team mates and their efforts to improve their skills at the game.

We would also like to thank all the parents once again for their continuous support by getting their children to practices and games on time.

We would also like to thank Philip Chow, who without his expertise and patience to get our paperwork in order with the region, made it possible for the team to participate in this tournament.

All the players on this team are truly ALL-STARS.