Sikeston 5-6 grade soccer teams compete in Gateway tournament

ST. LOUIS

Six soccer games were crammed into a wonderful weekend soccer tournament the weekend of March 30.

The Sikeston Fifth and Sixth grade indoor soccer teams, coached by Buzz Ferrell, traveled to the First Annual Gateway Strikers Soccer Tournament. Amongst the teams competing was nationally known Wolfpack. The Wolfpack team is the U12 AAU national champion.

The fifth grade girls played in two divisions; the fifth grade division and the U12 division. They knew going into the tournament the U12 division would be tough, but they fared pretty well. The U12 team played the Wolfpack, Unese, and the Gateway Strikers.

Though no wins came in this division, the matches brought about a new level of competition and experience. Just a couple of highlights were Jenni DeWitt's assist to Jordi Ferrell's lone U12 goal and Jennifer Millington's excellent defense of her goal. Another bright spot was the team effort at holding the score to 4-0 against the Wolfpack.

Tess Marshall, Emily Taylor, Kate Colley, and Adrienne Angelos made up the sixth graders on the U12 team and were a big help to Jennifer Millington's great games.

The fifth grade team did very well. Their record of 2 wins and 1 loss was good enough to tie for first in their division. But, they were eliminated by the Gateway Strikers in the tie breaker round. Playing their own age group, they had some of their best games this spring. The first two fifth grade games on Saturday produced all the scoring and the defense. Jordi Ferrell let the team with 5 goals of the day. Other scorers were Jenni DeWitt with 3 and Katie DeLaRosa and Amber Miller with 1 each. The assists were spread out also the Jenni DeWitt and Jordi Ferrell leading the way with 3 each and Kaitlyn Turnbow and Katie DeLaRosa with one each.

Brittany Jenkins played every position on the field, except goalie, and was a big part of the offense, she even had a couple of shots on goal. The one player that did play every position was Jodi Urhahn. She had many steals and kept the ball pushed up for our scoring opportunities. Kaitlyn Turnbow and Amber Miller also did an excellent job at the rover position. Goalie duties were split between Jennifer Millington and Jodi Urhahn, both had excellent games at keeper. The lone loss came in the fifth graders fifth game.

Playing on large Astroturf fields had taken its toll on the girls. They seemed to be a step behind most of the game, but never gave up.

Playing a new group of girls on a larger field did not intimidate the Sikeston girls. The went up there for the experience and came home winners.