The St. Albert Impact split two matches to kick off the U14 National Cup at Moncton, N.B.
The Alberta Soccer Association Tier I champions blanked Dartmouth FC of Nova Scotia 3-0 Wednesday and dropped a 1-0 decision to Fraser Valley of B.C. on Thursday.
Friday’s score against St. John’s SC of Newfoundland was unavailable at press time.
The Impact’s last group B match is Sunday versus Hillsborough United of Prince Edward Island.
Monday the top group A and B teams advance to the gold-medal match and the second-place finishers compete for bronze.
The remaining teams meet in the crossover-seeding phase.
The group A teams are the Brampton East Blades of Ontario, Bonivital SC of Manitoba, Eastside FC of Saskatchewan, FDSA of New Brunswick and the Yukon Strikers.
Visit www.canadasoccer.com for results.
Gausu Dukuly, Ousmani Maheshe and Nicholas Duro scored against Dartmouth (1-1) and Ivan Hirankunda posted the shutout.
The loss to Fraser Valley (2-0) featured yellow cards to the Impact’s Sam Russell, Laine Santos and Dukuly, his second of the tournament.
The Impact carried a 17-0-2 record into nationals after placing first in the Edmonton Interdistrict Youth Soccer Association regular season and the provincial tournament.
The first St. Albert boys’ team to qualify for nationals since the 1989 Cougars won the U18 championship defeated Foothills in the provincial final 4-3 in penalty kicks after a scoreless 80 minutes of full time and 20 minutes of extra time Aug. 21 in Calgary.
The Impact roster also consists of Euan Bartlett, Elijah Bossio, Evan Brassard, Dominic Clarke, Luke Drapala, Letrell Dunawa, Benjamin Hartley, Dayne Jepsen, Jaden Kennedy, Adebire Omorogbe, Isaac Reed, Ethan Rivest and Oliver Titchener.
Chris Clarke is the head coach and the assistant coaches are Eli Bartlett and Donal Russell.
