Local soccer team travels to Massachusetts, crowned champions

The Alabama FC ECNL U-17 boys soccer team brought home a championship this week after going undefeated during US Club Soccer’s Boys Eastern National Premier Leagues (NPL) Finals on July 3 at Progin Park in Lancaster, Massachusetts.

The team, based in Birmingham, compiled four victories and one draw in this highly prestigious youth tournament to cruise to the title, while outscoring opponents by 14 goals along the way.

Athletes included Eric Besse of Hewitt-Trussville High School, Logan Frost and Bailey Morman of Briarwood Christian School, Patrick Neil of Mountain Brook High School and many others.

“Winning this event was a great accomplishment for the program and soccer overall in the region,” said Alabama FC Director of Coaching Ben Parks. “The future is bright in Alabama regarding the evolution of soccer.”

In group play, they played to a draw against Quickstrike FC 01 (Hudson Valley, New York) before defeating BRYC Elite Academy U17 (Fairfax, Virginia) and Bayside FC 2001 NPL Boys (East Providence, Rhode Island) to advance to semi-finals.

Once in the knockout stage, FC Alabama dominated FSA FC (Farmington, Connecticut) to move on to the championship. The final match was against World Class FC (Sussex, New Jersey), which featured a pair of undefeated teams. The Boys Eastern NPL championship title was handed to Alabama FC after a decisive 4-0 victory.

“Clearly the most outstanding player was Peyton Rodgers [of Starkville, Mississippi] in goal,” Parks said. “Having four straight shutouts was impressive.”

However, the rest of the FC Alabama players did not go unnoticed and were also highly commended for their winning efforts.

“It's hard to not recognize all of our goal scorers, which were plentiful,” Parks said. “Overall, the execution and focus of the players during the event was something I am very proud of.”

Submitted by Tomás Silvani