SUBMITTED PHOTO The under-15 Rattlers Athletic Soccer Club girls team awaits a match at the Crescent Point Fieldhouse in Okotoks Jan. 19.
Hat soccer teams were in Okotoks on consecutive weekends to take part in a tournament that’s expanded to fill an entire month.
The Anthem United Communities Cup won’t wrap up until this coming weekend, but Rattlers teams already have quite a haul of hardware as all eight teams wound up with podium-worthy results.
This past weekend the boys teams were in action, with the under-17 Tier 2 Rattlers claiming gold.
They beat Calgary’s McKenzie United 5-3 in the Sunday final, killing off a couple penalties and down 3-2 with five minutes to go before mounting a comeback. Medicine Hat had beat Calgary 4-3 in the round robin, plus wins of 7-1 over Airdrie and 6-1 over Okotoks.
In the under-17 Tier 3 division, Rattlers Athletic Soccer Club took third thanks to a pair of wins over the Foothills Mustangs.
They beat the Mustangs 6-3 in the round robin, then 5-0 in the bronze medal game with only eight players available. Carson Lansberry earned the shutout. RASC also lost 5-2 (to SWU Force) and 4-0 (to Calgary Hammers) in the round robin.
A week earlier the under-17 Tier 2 girls won their opener 3-1 over Okotoks but lost their last three, including a Jan. 19 third-place game 3-1 to the MSB Premiers.
Under-15
The RASC Tier 2 under-15 boys earned bronze with a 2-1-1 record in Okotoks. They beat WHU Atletico 6-4 in the round robin, then 1-0 in the third-place game. A 3-3 tie with the host team and a 4-2 loss to Calglen Cavalry rounded out their weekend.
A week earlier, the under-15 Tier 3 girls went 2-1-1 to earn silver, undone by the Calglen Thunder’s quick start in the Jan. 19 final. Down 3-0 in four minutes, RASC got a goal from Auriel Heese to avoid the shutout and a solid game from Shay Jones but settled for second spot.
They’d tied Calglen 0-0 in the opener (Kaylee Feeney player of the game), beat Blizzard United 8-2 (Ivy Hozack scoring five goals and Kristin Hollingworth two), and earned a 7-1 win over Foothills (Payton Hogg earning player of the game).
Under-13
Two under-13 teams wound up with tournament wins a week apart.
The girls Tier 2 side squeaked into the final despite a 1-1-1 round robin record, but came out blazing against Foothills who they’d lost to a night earlier. Milah McCarty had three unanswered goals and Rayne Bueckert netted the winner after Foothills had tied it, the final 4-3 for RASC.
This past weekend the Tier 2 boys won their four-team round robin division with a 3-3 tie against Spartan Warriors, a 7-2 win over Cochrane’s Wolves and a 7-0 win over the EMFC Villains. That got them a spot in Sunday’s final, where they edged Lethbridge 2-1 for gold.
The Tier 3 boys were also in action this past weekend, but not in Okotoks like everyone else. They finished third at an event in Regina, losing an overtime game in the semifinal round.
Under-11
While the other RASC teams competed in indoor soccer, the under-11 boys tried out futsal this past weekend – basically the same game but without the use of boards.
It turns out, they’re just as good, boards or not.
The Rattlers beat Okotoks 3-1, tied Calgary’s McKenzie 1-1, then beat EMFC 6-0 to earn a spot in the final against Foothills. They lost that game in a shootout, 1-1 after full time but a 3-2 result in the penalties that followed.
