Photo by Dustin Cook
PENALTY DRAMA 鈥� (Left) Tony鈥檚 Pizza player Nathan Bingham boots the ball down the pitch against Pepsi. (Right) Pepsi goalie George Maratos watches the ball fly past him during penalties. Maratos then scored the winner for his team.
The final of the Whitehorse Rapids Over-35 soccer season went all the way to penalties
The final of the Whitehorse Rapids Over-35 soccer season went all the way to penalties as 55 minutes wasn鈥檛 enough to separate two very good sides.
In regular time Travis Schommer was the Pepsi hero, as his two goals helped maintain parity between the sides.
His second goal came with only a minute left on the clock and broke the hearts of the Tony鈥檚 Pizza team that had given everything over the course of the match.
Tony鈥檚 was dealing with a thin bench with illness and injuries, but were leading throughout the game through goals by Justin Carre, Arnold Hedstom and Phil Jackson until Schommer鈥檚 late intervention after Myles Dolphin added a goal for Pepsi.
The teams couldn鈥檛 be separated after five minutes of extra time, so for the second week running Pepsi tried to win the game via penalties.
Up stepped scorers Dolphin and Carre who both missed, then Guliano Rayo and Gareth Howells each scored for their side.
Jackson missed for Tony鈥檚 leaving skipper Keith Maguire to seal glory for his team as he did last week, but unbelievably he missed, sending this game into sudden death penalties.
Big Nathan Bingham missed for Tony鈥檚 and after standing guard in net, Pepsi nominated keeper George Maratos.
The goalkeeper took off his gloves, focused himself, and drove the ball calmly down the centre of the goal for a monumental and well-deserved win for the Pepsi squad in red.
In the ap茅ritif, the other three teams Yukon Info.com, Yukon Brewing and Klondike Business Solutions, all won one game in a mini round-robin tournament, meaning they all finished with the same points to leave them all tied for third place.
The end of season awards were decided with the league MVP and the top scorer Golden Boot award going to Carre.
Maratos was awarded best goal keeper, the league spirit award went to Danny Macdonald and Simon Pulido picked up the over-50 trophy.
The Dream Team was also announced, a team made up of the six best players in their positions and the top five over-50 players. They are George Maratos, Mark O鈥橞rien, Keith Maguire, Justin Carre, Guliano Rayo, Eric Murphy, and the over-50 players Jurgen Korn, Chris Stacey, John MacPhail, Simon Pulido and Jim Connell.
- By Andy Todd
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Susan matatos on Mar 9, 2018 at 6:27 pm
As a proud and caring mom geo never fails to do us proud! OPA Georgi and team!鈿斤笍