14th Annual Newton Girls' Soccer

Columbus Day Invitational Tournament
was

October 12 - 13, 2002

Results statement from the tournament director:

Greetings all,

Thanks for joining us in Newton this year for the Columbus Day Tournament. Many have asked how things finally turned out, so here's a wrap-up of the weekend. It comes with a price, however: please complete the attached tournament feedback sheet and fax it back to me. Your constructive comments are one of the ways we can continue to improve our event.

Newton Girls Soccer hosted 53 teams from throughout New England in our fourteenth Annual Columbus Day Invitational Tournament . Yet again, this year’s weather was most un-cooperative. Despite a continuous drizzle, mixed with occasional rain, we managed to get all games played essentially on schedule. Even with the damp weather, by all measures the tournament was a success.

Due to the school construction at Newton South High School, we accepted approximately 10-15 fewer teams than in past years. This allowed us to keep all of the games at the Brown/South site, thus minimizing unnecessary traffic in and out of the already congested area.

In selecting teams we strive to provide top-flight competition at our Division 1 level, and solid, balanced competition throughout our Division 2 brackets. Reviewing the results from the 112 games played on Saturday and Sunday, we’ve noted 7 ties and 34 one goal games. 54% of the games were decided by two goals or less, and 73% by three goals or less. We had three of our championship games go into OT and then pk’s. And in the U12-D2 five team round robin bracket, we had a three way tie for first which required us to go to the fifth tie-breaker (bonus points for cumulative goal differential) to determine the winner. And even then, only one goal separated the top two.

The divisions of play were, by and large, balanced, the competition keen, sportsmanship was at a high level and the spirit of the girls, coaches and parents, infectious.

The final results of the competition are summarized below:

DIVISION	CHAMPIONS	FINALISTS
U10 - D1 & D2	non-results oriented	non-results oriented
U12.6 - D2	No. Attleboro STORM	Newton THUNDER
U12 - Division 1	Avon, CT WILDCATS	Framingham CHEETAHS
U12 - Division 2	Holliston HEAT	Westford POWER
U14 - Division 1	Dighton-Rehoboth STRIKERS	Walpole LYNX
U14 - Division 2	Needham ROCKETS	So. Windsor, CT EXTREME

This year we continued our Sportsmanship Award for each division of play, through direct sponsorship of the Newton South Co-operative Bank. Scoring was done by the game officials and, in each division, the competition for the top spot was tight. The final results are summarized below:

DIVISION	SPORTSMANSHIP AWARD
U10 - Division 1	Newton BLAZE
U10 - Division 2	Dedham STRIKERS
U12.6 - Division 2	Framingham FLASH
U12 - Division 1	Concord/Carlisle SPIRIT
U12 – Division 2	South County, RI BLUE BOMBERS
U14 - Division 1	Wellesley BREAKERS
U14 - Division 2	Needham TIGERS

The Newton Columbus Day Tournament continues to build on its very solid reputation as the mid-fall “tournament of choice” in the Northeast region, and we look forward to hosting our fifteenth event in the fall of 2003. We were glad to have you join us, and we look forward to seeing many of you again in the years to come.

Please do return the feedback sheet.

Ted

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ted Ritchie, Co-Director
Newton Columbus Day Tournament
[H] (617) 244-5636
[F] (781) 398-9195