FAIRMONT- The Greenbrier East Spartans boys’ soccer team is using the offseason summer wisely and competed in the Kaylee Mae Boyles Memorial Soccer Tournament over the weekend.
The tournament was created to honor Boyles, a student athlete at East Fairmont High School that passed away unexpectedly at the young age of 19 just two years ago. She played soccer and tennis and was on the swim team.
The Spartans ran around from end-to-end over a 4-game span with temperatures reaching the upper 90’s in each one. East won all four games and shutout the opponent in all four as well for a clean sheet weekend.
“It was a beautifully run tournament for a great cause,” East coach Lucas Lemine said while also describing the heat as unpleasant.
“East Fairmont is the group that runs it, and it went smoothly without complaint. Girls played the morning session and boys started pretty close to on time and finished around 8:45,” he added.
Lemine was thankful to get some early work in against some relatively unfamiliar teams and he also got a good look at his own roster which appears to have some quality depth for this upcoming season.
“We had the opportunity to play teams we normally do not. Fairmont Senior will be moving to AAA, so a team we could see at the state tournament. East Fairmont is AA, a team we have never played. Braxton County, also AA, is a team we have played two times in my tenure. We took 16 guys, and everybody got plenty of playing time. Most impressively, the level of skill didn’t drop at all no matter who we had in the game or what position they were playing so the coaching staff as a whole are extremely pleased,” Lemine explained.
As mentioned above, East’s defense was stellar, and their offense was about as balanced as they could get.
“Eleven total goals, eight different goal scorers and one own goal. We only gave up three shots on target, two slow rolling efforts, and one great judgement call from our goalie coming quickly off his line in a 1-v-1 opportunity. Putting in a new system of play and playing that system at its most simplistic form, seeing success, and also leaving room for addition is a great way to start our summer session,” Lemine stated.
The team will continue to train in practice form for a couple more weeks and Lemine encourages players who are still interested in suiting up to come on out the soccer complex at the school.
“We will continue to train Tuesday and Thursday using flex days (6-8 pm) until about the middle of July. Give the boys some time to reset until we kick it up for real August 5th. Any current or upcoming high school students can come train with a completed physical,” Lemine concluded.
