Over the Labor Day weekend, SOCA co-hosted the second annual Blue Ridge Cup along with partners Central Virginia United, defying the heat to provide a competitive tournament event for 202 travel teams.  With matches spread over the two hosting communities (boys matches in Charlottesville and girls matches in Lynchburg) west central Virginia was a busy soccer destination.  The tournament experienced remarkable growth, up from 133 teams last year.

With 37 division titles on offer, SOCA squads walked away with 16 gold medal placements, demonstrating the club’s comprehensive quality across age groups and genders.  Three first place champions hailed from the SOCA-Augusta program, and 13 are Charlottesville based teams.  SOCA claimed 10 SOCA boys championships, and six SOCA girls titles.

“Overall we are pleased with the level of competition”, said Bill Mueller, SOCA Director of Soccer.  “SOCA teams faced stiff challenges throughout and found some success.  The tournament has proven to be quite useful in providing our coaches and teams an opportunity to learn a lot in a short period of time at the start of the fall season.  And we enjoy hosting a local event for our families.”

Future plans include controlled growth and attracting more top competition at the Elite level.  Tournament organizers are looking to add touches of service which will increase the appeal of the developing event