It was a busy weekend for a handful of local competitive soccer teams, with squads competing both in Sudbury as well as elsewhere in the province. Following is an update on some of the teams in action:

Panhellenic head coach Jeff Falcioni has made no bones about the fact that he has set a goal of a decent Ontario Cup run for his team as one of the realistic achievements the young ladies should strive for in 2007. Well, step one is now out of the way, but it certainly wasn't easy.

Jenna Roach scored in the opening 15-minute segment of extra time on Sunday, lifting Panhellenic past the London Galaxy 2-1 in the opening round Cup matchup. Erica Duczeminski had scored earlier in the game for Sudbury before Roach provided the heroics with her Golden Goal.

"While I don't believe that London is a better team than we are, they did play a better game than us yesterday", acknowledged Falcioni, who commended his team's defensive effort in toughing out a somewhat fortuitious win. The coach was also pleased with the efforts of goalkeeper Taylar Dawe, who came up big during the hard fought contest.

Dawe also turned aside a penalty kick 24 hours earlier en route to a 2-0 shutout over the Limestone Rebels as Kayla O'Link and Anjelica Mazzella handled the scoring for the local crew. The regular season victory improved Sudbury's record to 3-3-1, good for 10 points and second place in the Provincial Under 21 Central Division, one point ahead of Limestone.

Panhellenic will now face the Barrie Spirit in round two of Ontario Cup play after the Spirit edged the Mount Hamilton Avalanche 2-1 on Sunday. The game is tentatively set for this coming Sunday at 3:00 p.m. at Cambrian, although this will require the rescheduling of a league game versus Vaughan originally set for the same date.

The U-15 Canadians took advantage of a favourable schedule in order to snap a three game CGSL winless streak, picking up a pair of important victories on the road to vault into a 3rd place tie over the weekend. Facing the last place Darlington Fury, the Canadians were paced by a Cloe Lacasse hat trick in defeating the Fury 4-1. Serena San Cartier added the remaining goal and the Sudbury offense got untracked after being on the wrong end of back to back shutouts in mid-June.

Saturday, Lacasse and San Cartier were joined on the scoresheet by Kyla Pettigrew as the Canadinas trimmed the Glen Shields Sun Devils 3-1. With the wins, coach Frank Malvaso and company improve to 3-2-1, tied with Oshawa and Barrie in the eight team Level 3 league.

Having settled for second place in their Ontario Cup playdowns in June behind the London City Flash and remaining busy with their involvement in the local SRCSL schedule this summer, the only confirmed tournament action ahead for the Canadians is in October when the ladies travel to Chicago (Illinois) to participate in the Super Club tournament.

All of which is just fine with Malvaso as he tries to rest a number of key players nursing injuries incurred with the hectic schedule of playing in two leagues.

After opening their first season of CGSL play with six straight losses, the Storm were anxiously awaiting a visit from two other struggling U-13 teams this past weekend as Woodbridge and Etobicoke. Of course, it didn't hurt that the team was coming off a silver medal winning performance in late June in Cumberland, helping to provide a little more optimism for coach Kevin Roach and company (more on the tournament later).

In a pair of closely contested games, the Panhellenic girls managed to chalk up their first point of the 2007 season, playing Woodbridge Strikers to a 2-2 draw Sunday afternoon at Cambrian College. Trailing 1-0 at the half, the Storm received a pair of goals from Mariah Clark to salvage the tie.

Saturday, Sudbury came up with arguably their best defensive effort of the season but no one could find the back of the net for the locals as the team fell 1-0 to the Etobicoke Titans. On the weekend of July 22nd to 24th, the Storm U-13 Girls participated in the Cumberland Snakebite Tournament in Ottawa, capturing the Silver Medal in the Serpent Division.

Sudbury swept the round robin portion, posting a 3-0 record with wins over Colbourne (2-1), Ottawa South (6-1) and Granby (Quebec) (1-0). Strong defensive play, hard work and ball movement factored in the team's first place finish and a spot in the championship against Granby.

The final was a hard fought, physical affair that ended in a 3-2 loss to Granby, with Michelle Graham and Kara Lloyd handling the scoring for Panhellenic. Head Coach Kevin Roach noted "that the hard work, commitment and dedication the girls put forth in practice was quite evident this weekend and I am extremely proud of their efforts."

On Saturday, the Sudbury Athletic U-13 boys defeated the Soo Strikers U-13 boys 4-1 in a one-game playoff to capture the N.R.S.L.(North Regional Soccer League) championship. Jesse Johnson scored three first half goals, with James Larocque adding another in the second half in what was a hard fought match between two familiar northern rivals.

Daniel Turco replied with the lone Soo goal, spoiling the shutout bid of Sudbury's Joel Carpino who enjoyed a stellar game in the Athletic net to preserve the lead and the win. The local boys now await a match against an opponent from Southern Ontario slated for late August/early September to play for the right to enter the C.S.L. (Central Soccer League) for next season.

In addition to the efforts of Johnson, Larocque and Carpino, a very strong team game was played by all of the members of the Athletic, a group that includes: Emerson Carniel, Spencer Moore, Sven Trodel, Damjan Peric, Conor Blayney, Kari Hytti, August Jarecki, Liam Doyle, Marco Presot, Alex Jibb, Patrick Robert, Keegan Pitre and Connor Griffiths.

The team is coached by Jeff Vaillancourt and managed by Dan Moore.

Facing the powerful Vaughan Azzurri squad in the opening round of Ontario Cup play on Sunday at home, the most faithful Panhellenic supporter may have hoped for an improbable win for the homeside. But few could have foreseen a 3-0 whitewash by Sudbury that would propel the locals into Round two this weekend and sending one of the pre-tournament favourites to the sidelines.

Panhellenic will now face the Woodbridge Strikers in action at home this Sunday after Woodbridge doubled the windsor Cabots 4-2 last weekend. The Pan U-21 team currently compete in the SRCSL Men's Premier Division, providing some very talented and high-caliber opponents to prepare for Ontario Cup U-21 competition.

Despite not playing at all this past weekend, Panhellenic United did receive some positive news, of sorts. The team has moved up to 18th in Ontario in the Terra Power Rankings, a rating system that was developed to help promote interest in organized, competitive youth soccer.

While the TPR system certainly has some flaws, the ratings are based on regular season performance, Ontario Cup results (which allows some measurement of the respective strength of various leagues) as well as league cup play and tournament results.

The 18th place ranking is the highest achieved by Pan United after topping out at 21st in July of 2006 and 20th by the end of the 2006 campaign. In 2005, Panhellenic finished the year rated 77th in the province. The team is now in their second year of Central Soccer League action, posting a 4-3 record good for a 3rd place tie in league standings with the Toronto Eagles.