MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- Ten high school teams competed at the first boys and girls Samurai Shootout soccer tournament here March 5-6.
Placing first and winning the tournament for both boys and girls was Canadian Academy High School from Kobe, Japan.
Placing second for the boys was Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni’s very own Matthew C. Perry High School, and placing second place for the girls was Robert D. Edgren High School from Misawa, Japan.
“We played this last year, but we just played games. There wasn’t a tournament,” said Mark Lange, M.C. Perry boy’s soccer team coach. “We decided to make a tournament out of it because when teams come here for just games, they’re just games, but when you play a tournament, there’s more interest.”
Each team played a total of four games during the two-day tournament, and the winner was determined based on an overall accumulation of points throughout the tournament.
Teams were awarded three points for winning, one point for tying and no points for losing a match.
In the case two teams tied for points, the winner would be chosen based on the amount of goals the winning team had over the losing team in each game or “goal differentials.”
With a maximum of five goals counting toward differentials in each match, the team with the highest amount of goals at the end of the tournament would be declared winner. If teams were still tied based on goal differentials, a coin toss would determine the winner.
“Canadian Academy is good,” said Steve Caner, Ernest J. King boy’s soccer team coach. “We were in a tournament with them last week. They brought mostly (junior varsity) guys, but if they bring their first pick guys, they’re going to be hard to beat.”
Canadian Academy and M.C. Perry were tied in total wins by the end of the tournament, but after reviewing the goal differentials, M.C. Perry had a total of 12 points and Canadian Academy had 15, making Canadian Academy the champions of the Samurai Shootout.
The tournament adhered to the National Federation of State High School Association’s rules with the following additional rules: Each game was 30 minutes long with a five minute half time; all substitutions were at the discretion of the referee; if the team in possession made a substitution, their opponent was also allowed to make a substitution but immediately without any time delay; and substitutions were not allowed to be initiated by any team that did not have possession.
Now if the rules weren’t challenging enough, the entire Penny Lake field was effected by the excessive amount of rain over the course of the week, to include Saturday morning’s early showers.
Throughout the entire day, coaches, players and officials rotated every 15 to 20 minutes using a field squeegee to remove the excess water off of the field.
“The water slowed everything down. It was a disadvantage to some teams, but it allowed us to contain the ball more,” said Christopher Anderson, M.C. Perry girl’s soccer team coach.
Jennifer Black, left forward from Edgren High School, was the Most Valuable Player for the girls division Andre Bugawan, forward from M.C. Perry High School, was the MVP for the boys.
Even though the weather was against them, the teams gave their all throughout the tournament, and for those who didn’t place first, Lange said there will be many more Samurai Shootouts to come.