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The inaugural 2008 Gonzaga Provincial Soccer Showcase features 24 high schools and more than 320 senior student athletes at the Hershey SportZone.
The three day tournament, which kicked off on Wednesday, was created to promote elite soccer at the high school level, according to tournament organizer Eddie Jurinic of St. Aloysius Gonzaga.
"Soccer is not as big as it can be in Canada as a whole. We have so much talent especially in Mississauga," he said. "Of course, showcasing the talent to potential scouts is one aspect, but the biggest thing is to have fun."
Sheridan College head coach Paul Angelini, of the Sheridan Bruins' girls team, was scouting the local high school players.
"They are very good and are probably going NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) or OUA (Ontario University Athletics)," he said. "In all my years this has got to be the best run tournament I've seen."
Gonzaga wants to build this event into the premiere provincial tournament for high schools, and they're doing it without playing on grass. They chose a state of the art facility: Hershey boasts a FIFA-sized indoor artificial turf field and four outdoor artificial fields.
"As much as we like to play on grass, and grass is the game, in Canada it's just not practical for our weather," said Angelini. "This (artificial turf) is expensive, but you save the money in the long run with maintenance costs."
Despite Canada's weather, the second generation of soccer kids are on the rise, said Cathy Coelho, a Gonzaga Bulldogs coach.
"If you look at the top soccer countries in the world (Canada's) pooling people from those places," said Coelho. "We should be awesome because we're pulling from everywhere."
The teams were broken down into pools - the 16 girls' teams were divided into four and the eight boys teams split into two.
After two days of non-stop soccer the girls from St. Joseph Jaguars, with a perfect record of 3-0, will take on Brampton's Harold Brathwaite S.S. Blizzard (1-1-1) in the quarter finals on Friday morning. The St. Martin's Mustangs (3-0) will play the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (2-1); The St. Ignatius of Loyola Hawks (3-0) from Oakville face the tournment host Bulldogs (2-1), and the St. Augustine Falcons (3-0) of Brampton meet Caledon's Robert F. Hall Wolfpack (2-1).
The boys semi finals will kick off later at 10 a.m., featuring Gonzaga (2-1) up against Notre Dame (2-1) of Welland. The perfect St. Marguerite D'Youville Panthers (3-0) of Brampton face Oakville's King's Christian Cavaliers (2-1).
Tennyka Francique (St. Augustine) and Ashlie Marchese (St. Joseph) lead all scorers with six goals a piece.
onlinenews@mississauga.net