Wolves lock up Keystone Cup
The St. Catharines Club Roma Wolves U12 boys capped off a memorable season with a championship at the 2024 Keystone Cup Labour Day weekend at the Christian Pulisic Youth Club in Pennsylvania.
The Wolves defeated Hex FC 4-1 in the championship final. The Keystone Cup is the largest tournament in the Eastern Atlantic region and considered one of the major tournaments in North America.
The Wolves were entered in the U13 division which was step up in both calibre as well as the size of the field and the ball used.
“We were in the Championship Division so that was the four best teams there,” Roma coach Howard Hyman said. “It was the first time ever the boys played 11 vs. 11 on a men’s field with a size five ball.”
The Wolves dropped their first game 2-0 to Hex, then went undefeated to take home gold.
Hyman said the team rebounded well from the defeat.
“It was no big deal to us,” he said. “It was 0-0 at halftime and I caused that as a coach because I was thinking more to be fair than to win the tournament. I experimented at halftime, pulled out our main goaltender but we never worried. When you coach kid’s soccer you’re balancing out winning with a lot of other things.”
Hyman went into the tournament confident the Wolves would come out on top.
“I had watched the teams a little bit on line because I know we have excellent players. I wanted to see if there was anything to be uncertain about and there wasn’t,” he said. “We have excellent players on our team, players that are in European academies.
“My team is set apart from a lot of the teams here. We are on a different level from other teams in our age group. It is an underdog story for everyone else, but we expected to win.”
The championship was the icing on the cake of a noteworthy 2024 campaign that saw the Wolves go undefeated in local league play and also win the Grimsby Invitational.
“We had tournament experience this year. When you win a tournament it’s big deal in terms of experience,” Hyman said. “It gives you a lot. You’re basically gaining a month of experience in one day. Usually you play a game a week and you’re playing five in a day. It is something that becomes a platform for the kids to spring to for another level.”
Hyman said the Wolves are now the fifth-ranked team in their age group on Canada.
“That’s a huge deal,” he said.
The team will take a two-week hiatus from training before getting back to work.
“We don’t stop training. The difference between me and a lot of the programs is I train my boys year round,” he said.
Following is the team roster.
Iker Ayala
Sam Bennett
Jack Bradley
Gabe Scetta
Tyler Gray
Didier Hyman
Eason Huang
Sophia Romero
Peyton Dupuis Edgecombe
Drake Dupuis Edgecombe
Christian Kammouh
Zayan Moradi
Alex Nitsopoulos
Kees Nater
Lucas Laundry
Emmett Otway
Logan Loewen
Westley Inman
Coach: Howard Hyman
Assistants: Tiffany Gardiner, CJ Inman
Manager Ella Loewen
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