The Leelanau County Soccer Club (LSC)’s select soccer teams represented the county in two area tournaments this spring that featured teams from across Michigan As well as Canada: the Cherry Capital Cup hosted by TBAYS in Traverse City and the Petoskey Summer Invitational hosted by the Petoskey Youth Soccer Association (PYSA). This spring LSC rebranded it’s select soccer program, formerly known as the “M-22s” to LSC United in order to capture the coming together of players from the different area recreational teams to a form a team to represent the county. LSC United teams are composed of players from across the county, as well as players from Benzie and Grand Traverse Counties that attend tryouts. Players in the U9 through U11 age divisions play for both their local recreational team and the LSC United team. Players in the U12 through U14 divisions play in the Northern Michigan Soccer Alliance league as well as compete in area tournaments.
This year the boys under nine years of age (U9) team, coached by Logan Suttmann, had fantastic success. They won the competitive silver division at the Cherry Capital Cup on May 19-20, 2018 and the U9 division at Petoskey on June 9-10. At the Cherry Capital Cup, the LSC United boys defeated teams from Rochester Hills and Grand Rapids before defeating Kalamazoo’s RASC team in the finals by a score of 5 to 4. At the Petoskey Summer Invitational, LSC United advanced to the finals by defeating Elk Rapids and the Bay City team and squared off against the Mount Pleasant Extreme team in the finals. The LSC United boys won the championship game in overtime by a final score of 4 to 3. “I can’t believe it! Soo much fun,” said Coach Suttmann after the game.
At the PYSA tournament, the U11 Boys team, coached by Pete Connor and Jim Chacon, missed the finals based solely on goal differential – they had beaten one of the eventual finalist teams in the preliminary round. Other LSC United teams participating in the tournaments included a U9 Girls team (Coach Mankowski), two U10 Boys teams (Coaches Switzer and Geer), a U10-U11 Girls team (Coach U’Ren), a U12 Boys team (Coach Switzer), a U13-U14 Girls team (Coach U’Ren) and a U13-U14 Boys team (Coach Irvine).
LSC United tryouts for the fall 2018-Spring 2019 season will be held Saturday, June 16 at Hancock Field in Leland from 9 to 11 AM. The fall season will be open to players eligible for U9 through U13 play (2011 through 2006 birth years), and the spring season will be expanded to include players with a 2005 birth year (U14).