After an uneventful first half with only a couple threatening incursions from Notre Dame shooters looking for paydirt around Northside Christian North Stars net, 10-year-old Austen Vanden Bos took over the North Stars' netminding duties from Marlyn Lampert.
Locked in a scoreless draw with their opponents from Dawson Creek in a game to decide the Terry Wilson Memorial Cup soccer championship, Vanden Bos breathed a sigh of relief when the North Stars of Vanderhoof scored two quick ones early in the second half for a 2-0 lead.
First Dietrich Pelzer took a lead pass from his younger brother Luther and chipped a shot high into the net behind Notre Dame goalie Owen Wilkinson. Then, less than a minute later, Nick Wall got free behind the defence and booted in another from just outside the crease.
That's when the fun began for Vanden Bos. With seven minutes still to play, the field started to tilt the other way as Notre Dame's offence came to life and they starting playing like they did in a 5-0 undefeated run to the final.
They needed goals to have a chance at taking home the trophy to Dawson Creek for the first time in the tournament's nine-year history and came close when they missed a slow roller that trickled wide of the net. Not long after that, Ellyos Alix, who banged one off the goalpost early in the game, put a shot on goal that forced a quick reaction from the Grade 5 goalie, who went down on his knees to smother the ball. But the best save for Vanden Bos was one he didn't have to make.
With about three minutes left, North Stars defender Sion-ed Peters put her hand out to deflect a loose ball away from a pack of Notre Dame forwards converging on the crease and the penalty shot was awarded to a Zaedmon Delacruz. From 10 feet away, Delacruz's point-blank blast hooked wide of the net and that pretty much sealed Notre Dame's fate.
"We had some good plays and our team was just really good in this last one and we had a whole bunch of fun here," said Vanden Bos. "We got the two goals back-to-back. We wanted to win this so we just kicked and kicked to get it in and we're happy we won.
"That penalty shot was pretty scary."
Luther Pelzer, 10, who scored the winner for the North Stars in a 3-2 semifinal victory over St. Ann's of Quesnel, said Vanden Bos' netminding heroics were the deciding factor that gave the North Stars their first title win in three years of playing in the Wilson tournament.
"He might have been our best player on the pitch," said Pelzer. "When we did score two goals it kind of put the pressure on to defend well and not let any goals in."
Wilkinson played in last year's Wilson tournament and said his team played well enough to win Friday's final but just couldn't score.
"It was fun, we did a lot better than last year," said Wilkinson. "We played pretty good. We had pretty good chances."
Alix was still thinking about his missed opportunity as the players gathered for the awards ceremony.
"That was pretty sad," he said. "It was pretty sad that we lost. We were close to getting it back in the second half."
Northside fielded two teams for the tournament and the other North Stars team lost 5-1 to Notre Dame in the A semifinal.
"It's an honour to be part of this tournament" said North Stars coach Adrian Pelzer. "It's a Catholic tournament and we're not a Catholic school and they've graciously allowed us to participate in three of the last four years.
"We've got a really athletic group of kids who love soccer and we had a number of Grade 5s that joined us as well. There's only had three girls in our class and they played a lot. They want girls on the field and we tried our best to get the girls in there. We had two teams here and some of the girls played on more than one team."
In other final results, the St. Anthony's Sabres of Kitimat defeated St. Mary's Huskies of Prince George 1-0 on penalty kicks in the B final, while Veritas Knights of Terrace topped the Sacred Heart Panthers of Prince George 4-1 in the C final.
