On the beautiful island of Coronado with clear skies, ocean views and cool breezes the Blades Boys U9 Red took home their first ever tournament championship defeating the host NADO in nail biting fashion - penalty kicks. These two teams had battled to a 2-2 draw on Saturday morning in a well contested match before meeting again in the final on Sunday afternoon where, again, they ended regulation in a 2-2 tie.  NADO scored early to take a 1-0 lead.  The Blades countered on a goal from Alex Desbans to end the first half 1-1. In the second half, NADO again scored first to retake the lead but, with time beginning to run short, the Blades evened the match by creating tremendous pressure in the goal mouth to force an own goal.  So, after 2 games and 100 minutes of soccer there was nothing between the teams and it was off to penalty kicks.  NADO shot first and Blades keeper, Justin Loranger, came up big and stopped the shot. The Blades first kicker Kyle Dougherty narrowly missed his shot banking it off the post.  The next NADO shooter missed wide left and then Timmy Woo-Sam put the Blades up 1-0 with a hard strike to the right.  Justin Loranger was a monster in the net and again stepped up and stopped the next NADO shot.  Blades captain Ian Howard then blasted his shot into the net to put the Blades up 2-0.  For the third time, Blades keeper Justin Loranger made himself big and pushed a high shot up into the crossbar sealing the victory for the Blades.

It was a hard fought weekend for the Blades; in pool play besides the 2-2 tie with NADO on Saturday morning, they put together a tremendous team effort against West Coast United with a 5-1 win.  Ian Howard lead the scoring charge with 2 first half goals.  Second half goals were tallied by Zain Houri, Alex Desbans and Timmy Woo-Sam.  On Sunday morning, the Blades matched up with MB Sand in Surf in a defensive struggle.  After conceding an early goal, the Blades played lock down defense for the rest of the game.  Anchored by Jared Wu, Grant Lockwood, Kyle Dougherty and the mighty Cole Martin,  the Blades shut the Sand and Surf offense down.  Goals however were hard to come by and despite a tremendous effort by midfielders Timmy  Woo-Sam, Kyle Dougherty, Joshua Sohn and Aidan Klimon, the Blades couldn’t break through.  With just minutes remaining Jared Wu stepped up and struck a shot from 40 yards out that beat keeper for the equalizer and propelled the Blades into the finals.

Coach Scott Hamilton did a fantastic job throughout the weekend and had this to say about the tournament: “Every member of the team showed a fantastic attitude, work rate and desire during the tournament contributing to this fantastic win.  The team showed great resilience to twice tie the scoring during the final, taking the game all the way to penalty kicks. A special mention must go to those players who volunteered to take the kicks, as well as Goalkeeper Justin Loranger who saved 3 out of 4 penalty kicks!  I'm delighted with this awesome team effort and I look forward to the continued development of the team in the coming months.”

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