A $100 prize is on the line for the winner of the four-against-four soccer tournament taking place at Willow Springs Middle School on Oct. 6 at 1 p.m. The entry fee is $10, and the proceeds from the tournament will benefit the Lovejoy Soccer Booster Club.
Seniors Christian Kwon and Trey Reiner are hosting the event as part of their senior project.
“During the tournament I will be watching over all of the games with Christian,” Reiner said. “We will be making sure everything runs smoothly, so unfortunately I will not be playing in the tournament.”
Reiner decided to host the soccer tournament as his senior project in attempts to spread the competitive game of soccer to others.
“To plan the tournament we had to get goals, cones, [sporting] pennies, referees and a place to host it,” Reiner said. “We ended up reserving the Willow Springs field on Saturday Oct. 6 and the indoor [facility] at the high school in case it rains.”
The teams are allowed to have more than four players per team for substitution purposes, but only four team members will be on the field at a time.
“If you decide to come out and watch your friends compete, it is completely free,” Reiner said. “But I’d recommend playing to benefit the Lovejoy Soccer Booster Club and have a chance at the $100 prize to the winning team and $50 prize to the second place team.”
Senior Brock Yeager is competing in the tournament with the same team as last year, including fellow seniors Haydn Spooner, Max Pabin, and Caleb Toomey.
“I chose to play in the soccer tournament because my squad and I won last year’s tournament, and we look to go back-to-back this year,” Yeager said. “We’ve got the chemistry, and we’ve got the heart to win. We expect to take another victory in this year’s tournament.”
Though Yeager and his teammates were excited to win last year’s tournament, he and his teammates were charitable with their winnings.
“Being the gentlemen that we are, we decided to donate half of it to charity; the other half we spent on lunch,” Yeager said.
