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For a second time in three years the Rutland Voodoos will represent the Okanagan at the B.C. School Sports AAA boys soccer championship tournament.
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A 3-1 win over the Mt. Boucherie Bears in the Valley final this week earned the Voodoos a berth in the provincial playdown in Burnaby Nov. 22-24.
Putting the host Bears under significant pressure from the get-go and getting solid goaltending from Oskar Giebichenstein when needed, the Voodoos held a firm grip on the title match and never relinquished it.
Eric Dueck opened the scoring for the winners 20 minutes into the match at Const. Neil Bruce Fields in West Kelowna, beating a busy Boucherie goaltender, Jordan Thorsen, on a breakaway with a shot through the five-hole.
The Voodoos maintained the momentum in the second half, taking a 2-0 lead on Daniel Pons’ marker at the 50-minute mark by finishing a nifty give-and-go.
Parm Parmar’s highlight play that saw him dribble through a pair of Bears and cap it with a clinical finish, rounded out the Rutland scoring.
Boucherie’s lone goal came from Luis Valdes off a cross from Ethan Furlong, who had beaten several Voodoo defenders to put himself into position to set up his teammate.
The win not only earned the Voodoos the trip to Burnaby for the provincial tournament, but avenged their 2-1 loss to Boucherie in the regular season. The Bears finished first with a 4-0-1 record leading up to the playoffs while the Voodoos were 3-1-1, in third place behind the Kelowna Owls (3-0-2).
Rutland advanced to the final by edging KSS 2-1 in semifinal play while Boucherie downed the fourth-place Okanagan Mission Huskies — last year’s champions — 1-0 in the other semifinal.
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