By Nathan Kanter

JP II boys soccer teams splits weekend tournament

Sep 26, 2016 | 1:08 PM

It was a solid first tournament of the year for the John Paul II Crusaders boys soccer team. They split their two games against Martensville and See See Wa Hum.

On Saturday morning they dropped a 4-2 game to See See Wa Hum, before rebounding well to beat Martensville 3-1.

“It was a good weekend,” Crusaders head coach Shalen Fox said. “We got to see a lot of our younger guys play. We got to see where we match up well with the other two teams in our division so that was good.”

Scoring the goals in the 3-1 win against Martensville were Austin Chakita, Blaise Seiben and David Draskic.

For the Crusaders, tournament play is just a warm up for regionals on the weekend of Oct. 22.

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If they finish in the top two at regionals – out of five teams – they’ll advance to provincials the next weekend.

Last year, the Crusaders made provincials but lost in the first game 6-2 to Notre Dame.

Fox said this year the biggest challenge is for their younger guys to get used to going against senior players.

“You’ve got some grade 9’s and 10’s versus grade 11’s and 12’s,” Fox said. ”That’s a two to three year gap. So just understanding the speed and strength of the players [is a challenge].”

It may be tough to make the adjustment, but Fox said he’s already seeing improvement.

“They’re getting comfortable with each other and they’re starting to have fun,” he said. “They’re starting to figure out how it is to play senior soccer.”

Fox is also able to heavily lean on his three grade 12 players: Thunder Morin, Michael Arcand and Narcisse Mbwebwe .

“We’ve got three awesome [grade] 12’s that are playing great and they’ve been here for [grade] 9, 10, 11, 12.”

Next weekend, the team heads to Prince Albert for another tournament.

After that, regionals will close in fast, where the young Crusaders hope to get back to provincials.

Nathan Kanter is battlefordsNOW’s sports reporter and voice of the Battlefords North Stars. He can be reached at Nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca or tweet him @NathanKanter11