Morning Star Staff
Vernon Tolko United U12’s two boys squads kicked off their Thompson Okanagan Youth Soccer League seasons with three wins in four games.
Team S swept its doubleheader, whipping Shuswap 9-1 and edging Kelowna United 2-1.
Landon Janke scored seven times in the romp over Shuswap with Justin Ruscheinsky and Zack Loland, on a brilliant throw-in from Jonah Violini, rounding out the scoring.
Kelowna proved to be a tougher battle.
Carter Leahy put Vernon on the sheet first followed by another goal by Janke.
Violini donned the keeper’s gloves for Vernon and made some fantastic saves. Benjamin Straight and Roan Reid played a great game.
Team C rebounded from a 4-1 loss to Kelowna to dump Kamloops 8-3.
The Tolko boys played strong against Kelowna with Aiden Winn taking on the keeper duties for the day. Declan Hardy was able to slip a pass to Owen Challen who put Vernon on the sheet.
Braiden Schmeigelt, Marcus Petersen and Liam Collins worked hard to shut down Kelowna’s offence. The Kelowna keeper also kept the United front line of Challen, Hardy and Cameron Acob down.
The game against Kamloops was a different story. First to get on the sheet was Nick Nolen, scoring on laser-like pass from Marcus Petersen.
Challen was denied when his shot hit the goalpost but Nolen passed the rebound to Schmeigelt who was able to finish the blast, notching his first goal of the season. Hardy racked up his second and third goals of the day and Devin Bilodeau was able to get his first hat trick with passes from Tate Garrod, Hardy and Parker Munroe, who rounded out the Vernon scoring.