Thunder in storming form

Spare a thought for Southern Indiana United's U9 Thunder team, which stormed through the Veterans' Invitational Tournament in Evansville over the weekend, only to be edged out by a strange goal differential rule.


The boys won all four of their games in a nine-team group, scoring a whopping 36 goals and conceding only three, which is a goal difference of 33.

Evansville Elite's White team also won its four games, scoring 21 goals and conceding two, which is a difference of 19.

So a convincing tournament victory for SIU, to add to its KSSL West Division and Bluegrass Cup triumphs?

Well, not exactly.

A tournament rule states that each team can only gain a maximum goal differential of plus-four for each game. So despite SIU's 7-1 win against Evansville Elite Blue; a 19-1 thrashing of South West Indiana Soccer Academy (SWISA); a 2-1 victory over Oldham County’s Thoroughbreds Blue and an 8-0 thumping of the Thoroughbreds Green team, they still came home empty handed.

Because of the rule, SIU was adjudged to have a goal differential of 13, with Evansville ending up at 15.

SIU’s other participants, the U11 terriers, lost their first game 4-2 to Jasper Firestrikers, tied with Evansville Elite, and lost to eventual winners Southern Illinois Force in their third game.

Meanwhile, the U16 Classic competition went to Mockingbird, which features Providence's Zev Crawley, Floyd Central's Max Orwick and Jeffersonville's Spencer Whiteman.

Saturday saw the boys win their opener 1-0 against SWISA Magic, with an Orwick strike, before tying with Cincinnati's Star Magic 0-0. That was enough to see them through to Sunday’s semifinal against Thoroughbreds, which they won 2-0 with help of a goal and an assist from Crawley.

The final saw them pitted against Sycamore Arsenal of Ohio, with Crawley heading the winner in a 2-1 victory.