Are teams up to the ‘Challenge’?

Southern Indiana United and Net-Surfers will be represented by three teams at the preliminary round of the Indiana Challenge Cup this weekend.

SIU's U17s and its U12 Strikers will be joined by Net-Surfers' U15 girls for the state championship level travel tournament, which will be held at three venues -- Columbus, Evansville and Lowell.

Drew Starck's U17s will be located in Columbus, where they will open against Fort Wayne Sport Kickers on Saturday (11 a.m.), and will follow it up with a game against Sporting Indiana FC (5 p.m). It will finish out against FC Pride on Sunday (11 a.m.).

Starck said his team is going int the tournament "pretty banged up", with two players out for the season due to injury and others missing recent games due to sickness.

"But with that said we are looking forward to the weekend and hope that we have saved our best soccer for the end of the season," he said. "If we knock the ball around like I have seen us do at times this season we will be fine."

SIU Strikers, meanwhile, will go into the competition in confident mood, having claimed first place in its division in the Kentucky Select Soccer League this spring.

It will play in Evansville in the U12 Blue section and will open its account against Hoosier FC (12.30 p.m.) and FC Pride Lawrence Marauders (6.30 p.m.) on Saturday. It finishes against Westside United on Sunday (1 p.m.)

Coach Paul Duckworth said his team is "really looking forward" to the weekend.

"At the beginning of the season, our priority was to win promotion, which we managed by winning the league," he said. "Anything else would be icing on the cake."

Duckworth said that a recent tournament in Nashville where they performed better than expected has given them a big boost.

"We now feel we can match anyone, and have more confidence going into the tournament," he said. "It all comes down to goals of course. In league play we only conceded eight goals, so defense has been good. During the season, we had 219 shots -- 92 on goal -- but only converted 24. If we keep creating chances and we can put them away, we should progress to the finals."

Net-Surfers U15s will also play in Evansville, opening against Indianapolis Premier Soccer Club on Saturday (4 p.m.) Jamie Ochsner's girls have an early start on Sunday against FC Indiana North at 8 a.m., and will complete their Bracket A games against GASC USF Real '94 (2 p.m.)

The four bracket winners in each age category will progres to the Challenge Cup Finals, which will be held at Shamrock Springs in Westfield from June 12-14.