Cascadia youth weekend wrap: USSDA, ECNL and B.C. Coastal Cup results
By Liviu Bird
Seattle Sounders Academy and Washington Premier FC teams found success last weekend against U.S. Development Academy and Elite Clubs National League opponents, respectively.
The Sounders had an overall record of three wins and a tie, while Washington Premier went 5-0 on Sunday at the ECNL San Diego Showcase. Other highlights included Cascadia rivalry matchups between Portland and Vancouver, as well as the start of the Coastal Cup in British Columbia.
• Real Salt Lake visited Puget Sound to play Crossfire Premier and the Sounders Academy. In the first match of the weekend, RSL’s under-18s took care of the Crossfire under-18s handily, winning 3-1. Garret Jackson pulled a goal back in second-half stoppage time to prevent the shutout.
On the under-16 side, Crossfire pulled out a 1-0 victory on the back of Satoshi Chaffin’s goal in the 31st minute. The younger Redmond team is in third place in the USSDA Northwest Division standings, while the under-18s find themselves on the outside of the playoff places in sixth.
• Over in Tukwila, the Sounders under-16s went 2-0, defeating San Juan SC 2-1 on Saturday and RSL 2-0 on Sunday. They sit in second place in the Northwest Division with 45 points, well behind the De Anza Force, which has 52.
Seattle’s under-18s jumped out to an early 2-0 lead over San Juan, as Jordan Kollars scored in the 21st and 22nd minutes. It was 3-0 before the visitors scored, and Seattle followed that up with three more unanswered goals for a 6-1 final score.
Real Salt Lake posed more of a challenge on Sunday, coming back from a two-goal deficit at halftime to tie the match at 2-2. Jordan Morris and Henry Wingo both scored for the Sounders, while Amer Sasivarevic and Tigran Tiraturyan provided the finishing touches on the RSL comeback.
The under-18s find themselves two points behind the Vancouver Whitecaps at the top of the Northwest Division.
• Those Whitecaps visited Portland, with the under-16s falling to the Timbers 4-0 and the under-18s winning 2-0.
Timbers under-16s got goals from Peter Prescott, Alan Hernandez and Alejandro Segovia (twice) to register a comfortable 4-0 win after going into halftime scoreless.
Rising star Yassin Essa added two more goals for the Whitecaps under-18s, in the 19th and 90th minutes, to lift his team to a 2-0 win. He has 16 goals in 21 appearances for the Caps.
• On Sunday, the Portland Timbers entertained San Juan, which made the three-hour drive south from Tukwila. The Timbers swept the matchup, 3-2 at the under-16 level and 2-1 at under-18.
Alan Hernandez scored the winner for the younger team on his third goal of the weekend. The under-18s held off San Juan’s late comeback, Cesar Rocha’s goal with 10 minutes left failing to inspire anything more from the visitors.
• At the ECNL Showcase in San Diego, Washington Premier FC’s girls’ teams were undefeated on Sunday, and the ’96 and ’97 teams posted 3-0 records for the weekend.
Overall, Washington Premier went 10-2-3 with nine shutouts, three of which went to the ’96 team that didn’t concede a single goal in the under-16 bracket.
• Across the border, the B.C. Coastal Cup kicked off with its round of 16 slate last weekend. In a knockout competition akin to England’s famous FA Cup, teams from up and down the province are drawn against one another and play a one-off match to see who advances.
Teams are divided into two brackets in each age group from under-13 to under-18, and both genders are represented. The competitive nature of the tournament is evident in the results; nearly every game was decided by one or two goals.
At this point, a complete round-up is unrealistic, but keep an eye on the brackets as teams work their way toward the final weekend. From now until May, the Coastal Cup takes place each weekend, with one round of competition each week.
