The defending champions and a new team on the block are amongst the top contenders for soccer gold.
The Holy Trinity Academy Knights and Strathcona-Tweedsmuir Spartans have earned the top-two positions and home playoff dates with key victories earlier this week in the hotly-contested Foothills Athletic Council senior boys soccer ranks.
“There’s a little bit pit of parity,” said Knights coach Paul Deadman. “Strathmore has a good striker, Tweedsmuir have a really good striker, but in defence of (our) team, they haven’t been full strength against every game.
“When we’re at full strength, I don’t think anyone will beat them.”
HTA closed its season with a 4-0 victory at home over the Strathmore Spartans on May 29 with Ethan Maroni shining in goal to earn the clean sheet.
The coach said the Knights have a strong roster featuring a midifield troika of Ben Odd, Daniel Hudson and George Deadman, central defenders Isaac Brawdy and Jeremy Cieplak along with key Grade 12 attacker Kurt Hymanyk, to name a few.
“The spine of the team is really strong,” Deadman added. “They’re gelling as a team, they’re becoming friends off the field and that’s what it’s about, it’s good to build that culture.”
The Knights, Spartans and Canmore Wolverines finished the season with identical 4-1 records and the three-way tiebreaker coming down to the wire.
STS knocked off Canmore 3-1 in the Rockies on Monday evening with a late-goal from Avery Martin giving the Spartans the goal differential edge to claim the second seed.
The Spartans are new entries into the league in 2023 with head coach Andrew Chalmers crediting a deep and committed group of players for getting the program off the ground.
“It’s been a while and we found some old jerseys in the athletic storage room for the boys and they looked pretty good,” Chalmers said with a laugh. “We just had a really strong group of guys that pushed for a soccer team this year, I agreed to coach and they’ve been great.
“It’s a well-organized league, they do it right and there’s all sorts of skill and talent across the league and some well-coached teams. We’re just having fun getting onto the pitch.”
The Spartans and Wolverines will meet again in the May 31 semifinal with the other fixture featuring the Knights and fourth-seed Strathmore .
“It was a fun game, hotly contested, both teams were into it and both teams played well,” Chalmers said. “It’s going to be a bit scrappy, exciting and I think both teams like to get out there and counter-attack and put balls in the net.”
The gold medal game is set June 5 at 4:30 p.m., hosted by the highest remaining seed.
HTA will also be hosting the South Central Zone championship on June 7-8 with the tournament featuring the top two finishers from league play along with representatives from Rocky View and Brooks.
