This tournament is organized every year and open to all Rec high school players, with each team playing three extra games each fall. It is a great, exciting tournament set up by the Girls' and Boys' High School Club Managers, and the Assistant Rec Director, each of whom puts in dozens of hours of extra work to bring this massive event to fruition! In addition, Arlington County deserves many thanks for helping us find the fields needed to shoe-horn games into already-packed schedules!

 

The Division 1 Boys' champs were the Civitans Pumas, and the Division 1 Girls' meet was won by Avalanche FC. The Division 2 Girls' competition was taken by the Thunderbirds/Falls Church, while the Division 2 Boys' victor was the Real Madrid.

 

The real winners? All the kids who got to play!

Additional real heroes? All the parents who braved the cold to cheer our kids on.

 

A more-detailed accounting of the tournament follows here:

 

Congratulations to Pumas, Avalanche, Real Madrid, and Thunderbirds FC

 

The 2018 High School Cup tournament took place November 10 and 11.  It was cold, and Saturday was windy, but there was plenty of sun and a good time was had by all.  The level of play was impressive throughout, with several goals scored that made me wish I could see them again in slow motion.  A total of 48 games were scheduled and by 9:00 PM Sunday we crowned the following champions:

 

Division 1 Boys:  Civitans Pumas

Division 1 Girls:  Avalanche FC

Division 2 Boys:  Real Madrid

Division 2 Girls:  Thunderbirds/Falls Church

 

Here’s how it went down:

 

All four girls’ brackets featured some tight, competitive games.  In the older division, Avalanche edged Royals 1-0 in the decisive contest, and Storm defeated LAFC 1-0 in their showdown.  In the freshman division, Dragons won 1-0 over Lions and Thunderbirds managed the same feat over Heartbreakers.  In the Division 1 finals, Avalanche repeated their 1-0 victory score by “playing to the whistle”--a disagreement between referee and linesman froze every player but one, who took advantage of the confusion to knock in the only goal of the contest.  The Division 2 final saw Thunderbirds put two into the Dragons goal to win.  I should have seen this coming; the Thunderbirds/Falls Church team had players from two teams whose coaches had each won this tournament before (with different players, of course), and both of them were on the sidelines.

 

In boys’ division 1, Chelsea and Pumas were nearly perfect in group play, each allowing a single goal in their three wins.  Red Devils edged AK Tigers by a point to squeak into the semis; Revs also advanced.  As most expected, it was a clash of the titans in the finals, with Pumas prevailing 3-1 over Chelsea.  In the younger division, AK Cosmos, Real Madrid, All Stars, and Blue Storm marched into the semifinals with solid performances that promised plenty of goals--and they produced them.  Real Madrid won two thrilling games by a 3-2 score, AK Cosmos stretching them to the limit in the final.