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Lancers Soccer Club Wins National Title

Plant City Lancers

The Plant City Lancers won a national title this month at the Red Diamond Vulcan Cup tournament. Team members include, from the left, bottom row, Krisomar Crispin, Isreal Santana, Austin Nutting, Cameron Roberts, A.J. Black and Zac Buckner, and top row, Marcus Svennson, Kendall Aquilar, Joey Pefetto, Mark Calhoun, Matt Encinosa, Victor Chang and Matt Staggs.

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By DAREK SHARP

dsharp@tampatrib.com

Published: April 1, 2009

PLANT CITY - The Plant City Lancers Under-16 soccer club recently brought home a national championship, taking the Boys Under-16 Silver tourney at the 2009 Red Diamond Vulcan Cup in Birmingham, Ala.

With more than 300 teams chosen from across 13 states, the Vulcan Cup is rated by national Web site gotsoccer .com as one of the top 40 tournaments (out of 75) held throughout the year. Getting invited is an honor but the Lancers went beyond just making it there.

There were seven other top-flight teams competing with Plant City in the Under-16 Silver Bracket. In the championship game played March 8 the Lancers defeated the Mandeville Lakers from Louisiana 2-1 in a penalty-kick shootout.

A.J. Black, Joey Pefetto, Marcus Svennson and Kendall Aguilar scored in the shootout.

The low score was a common theme in the Lancers' results as they rode a strong defense to the championship.

"We didn't score a lot of goals, but we didn't give up many either," Lancers coach Chris Black said. "We have a lot of good players, maybe not anybody who is ridiculously great but the secret is we're pretty solid throughout the whole team."

The Lancers' bench was shortened when Cameron Roberts suffered an arm injury in the second game. Initially the arm appeared to be broken, after a collision with the other team's goalie, but it turned out to be a severe bruise that kept Roberts out the rest of the weekend.

Plant City started by beating Georgia FC Elite 2-0. It then fell to Ohio Galaxies Elite 1-0, before topping the LSC Gamblers (Louisiana) on what turned out to be the biggest goal of the tourney, a score from Pefetto with five minutes remaining.

Even with the loss sandwiched in, the Lancers won their group thanks to the best overall record, 2-1. The Ohio team went undefeated but its other two matches were both scoreless ties. The Mandeville team had won Pool B also with a 2-1 record, advancing due to goal differential, having averaged three goals a game before being shut down by the Lancers.

Matt Encinosa, Zac Buckner, Krisomar Crispin, Matt Dodd, Isreal Santana, Matt Staggs and goalie Austin Nutting formed the defensive group.

Staggs also scored two goals, as did A.J. Black. Both of Staggs' scores came off headers. Crispin had the team's first goal of the event.

Eight different venues between Jefferson and Shelby counties in Alabama hosted action. There were 23 boys tournaments taking place over the March 7-8 weekend.

Last year the same core group made the semifinals of the Under-15 tourney and was a finalist in the Under-14 event the prior year.

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