Summer Cup for Gippy Soccer

THREE Gippsland Soccer League (GSL) squads competed in the recent Football Victoria Summer Cup at Casey. 

Over three weekends, the teams played against metro competitors and used the opportunity to hone their gameday skills.

The sun was out strong every weekend, and the heat took a toll on all the teams, thankfully the weather for the finals on Saturday, December 10, was a bit cooler than the week previous.

The Gippy’ Girls under 11’s played off in a bronze medal match against Monash Villareal under 11’s. 

The Gippsland Girls had been beaten comprehensively by that team in the group stages the week before, but they came out fresh and composed this time. 

They played a fantastic game and started to show some good team play in just their fourth game together. 

In the end the quality and skill of Villareal was telling and despite some scoring chances went down 5-0.

Gippy’ Girls under 12’s also came up against Villareal under 12’s in the final, after beating them 2-1 in the group stages. 

It was a tight tussle between two evenly matched teams, Villarreal broke the deadlock in the second half with a great cross and tap in which resulted in a final score of 1-0. 

The under 17 Boys were set to play three fixtures against the Casey Comets, as they were the only other team in this division. 

Their first game resulted in a GSL goal being disallowed due to an offside call and an unfortunate 3-0 loss despite relatively equal possession. 

Their second match up against Casey saw them take the lead into halftime but unfortunately suffer another disallowed goal and ultimately saw them suffer a 2-1 loss. 

Casey forfeited the third match after securing the trophy with their two wins. 

All the teams should be proud of their gameplay against strong opponents, now they can look forward to a break over Christmas. 

Training and selection for the Country Champ squads will commence early in 2023.