The U14 Boys Elite team. Pictured in the back row from left are Tristan Williams, Joe Carman, Zach Wiley, Andrew Shanton, Palmer Hanes, Nick St. Pierre, Luke Carter and coach Mark Meyer. In the front row are Chase Magnuson, Liam Wiecher, Ian Saunders, Noah Arthur, Kam Roberts, Ben Garbarini and Joe Palazzi. Photo courtesy of Martin Smith

The U14 Boys Elite team, including players Nick St. Pierre and Luke Carter of Roanoke County, finished second at the CASL Shootout, held Nov. 10-11.

The Roanoke Star U14 Boys Elite returned from the CASL Shootout as runners-up, after narrowly losing to VCCL South opponents VA Legacy 98. The boys went into the tournament full of confidence after some good recent performances, and on Saturday morning won a thrilling contest 5-4 against TUSA Green. The afternoon game brought more success as the boys defeated CASL Wake Forest United 2-1 before finishing top of the group with a comfortable 2-0 win over NRUSA 99 Blue. Despite a positive performance in the championship game, the team didn’t quite have enough and eventually went down 1-3 against VA Legacy.

As well as the U14 Boys, the U11 Boys Elite, U11 Boys SW Star, U12 Boys Elite and U13 Boys Elite were in attendance at the event. All teams enjoyed success, earning some very good results along the way.

Toye Oshoniyi, assistant director of coaching and head coach of the U11 Boys Elite, said, “We had a very good weekend and some pleasing performances at the CASL Shootout. Out of all our teams we picked up 11 wins, so our overall record was pretty good. As well as the results, we want to look at the performances, and I thought our teams played to a good standard and tried to get the ball on the floor and play possession-oriented soccer. For some of our teams, the season has now finished so it was really good to finish on a high.”

– Submitted by Martin Smith, Roanoke Star Soccer Club