Gitchi Gummi Soccer Club

2004 Premier Boys Wins President's Cup

Over a couple of weekends in Maplebrook, our 2004 Boys Premier team completed in the President's Cup. They played in pool play in the opening weekend and won two games and had a draw in the other, advancing as the top team from their group to play in the semifinal this Friday.

They were drawn against Fusion Select in the semifinal and came away with a 2 - 0 win with goals from Jakob Kidd and Dawson Kriske. Conrad Lazzaro recorded the clean sheet.

Sunday's 8 AM final was a barn burner. Our 2004s managed to win 5 - 3 in OT against Minneapolis Utd. After full time, the score was tied at 2 - 2, but in a crazy OT period Gitch netted 3 goals. Joey Eklund got the game winner and Jakob Kidd netted the other 2 to complete his hat trick on the day.

They will now advance to the Midwest Regionals in Ohio the weekend of June 17 - 21st. We wish them all the very best as they represent Gitchi Gummi Soccer Club and the State of Minnesota at this National competition.

Go get them, boys!!

Youth Development programming for the Summer

EXPANDED YOUTH DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

Due to the great success of our Youth Development Program over the past decade we have decided to expand our offerings in this area. We have had many requests over the years to expand on this programming in length and also add an in-house league component to cater to our members up to 12 years of age. Now with facility and coaching options we feel we are in a position to do so.

OUR YOUTH DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

We will continue to offer our 2 Youth Development Program. The first session will run from mid - May through June with the second session kicking off in late June and running through July. Both sessions will run over 6 weeks and will focus on fun, skill-building activities and games for any 4 to 11-year-old player. We will continue to divide this program into 2 subgroups: our Lil' Kickers program for 4 to 6 year-old players and our Juniors Program, aimed at 7 to 11 -year-olds.

This program has been the foundation of our Club for the past two decades. Often times we’ve been told that this was the highlight of a child’s summer. We make learning fun, which builds passion for the game. Greg Cane, a founder of Gitchi Gummi Soccer Club back in 1991 and UMD Women's Soccer head coach, leads the player development program. His wife, Patti Cane, has been involved with our younger soccer enthusiasts in the Lil' Kickers program now for 19 years. She does a fantastic job with the little ones as she uses her preschool director background to encourage, motivate, and engage our future stars.

Each of these 6-week camps will be held at Saints Field on the campus of St. Scholastica. Each group gets 11 total sessions. The Lil' Kickers take the field from 5:15 to 6:15 and Juniors follow from 6:30 to 7:30. The fee for these will be $100 per 6 week block.

SESSION 1 - Dates - May 10, 13, 17, 20, 24, 27, June 3, 7, 10, 14 and 17th.

To register for Session 1 please use this link. https://gitchigummisoccer.sportngin.com/register/form/129129063

SESSION 2 - Dates - June 21, 23, 28, 30, July 6, 8, 13, 15, 20, 22 and 27th

To register for Session 2 please use this link.

https://gitchigummisoccer.sportngin.com/register/form/671481475

RETURNING for Late Summer - OUR In-House league PROGRAM

In addition to our Juniors and Lil' Kickers programming, we are delighted to announce that we are adding a second session for Late Summer. This program would have a slightly different look to it. We plan to create 4 groups; each group would have two, 1-hour sessions a week -- Mon. and Wed. or Tues. and Thurs.

There would still be the emphasis on skill development through instructional coaching but we would also add a game component to this session with an in-house league. All of these sessions will be open to players 7 to 12 years old.

Our new 6 week program will start on August 9th and it would run until September 16th. Sessions would be between 5:30 and 8 PM each night at one consistent site. The fee for this will be $150 per player.

To register please use this link. More details to come on registration in late June.

6 GITCH PLAYERS NAMED TO MN UTD FC ACADEMY TEAMS

As a soccer club Gitchi Gummi has always looked for ways for our members to take their game to the highest level. We have had a relationship with West Ham Utd from the English Premier League for nearly a decade now and we formed a partnership with the ECNL program for Girls with Salvo a couple of years back.

With the introduction this year of the Minnesota United FC Academy by MNUFC as a feeder program to their MLS Club and its new structure our boys have another opportunity to put their attributes to the test. We had several players who took this chance to get exposure to top training and see where they fit in with players within their age groups. This opportunity that MNUFC YDP presented was another avenue for our players to be identified and ultimately be selected through the phases to represent MNUFC. Similar to our relationship with West Ham Utd, as a Club we will also benefit from this relationship as MNUFC coaches will come to Duluth to run sessions for our boy’s teams. The way the Academy will work is that players will continue to play with Gitch but will be afforded extra training and games with the Academy.

MNUFC recently ran several phases of try outs that started back in January. With the conclusion of the 4th phase they selected their teams for the 2021 Academy season this week.

We are delighted that 6 of our players have been chosen to represent MNUFC at the Academy level for 2021.

Eli Kramer (GK) 2004 – Gitchi U18 Boys Premier II Team

Amma Okoro (Fwd) 2004 - Gitchi U18 Boys Premier II Team

Parker Chastey (Mid) 2005 - Gitchi U18 Boys Premier II Team

Daniel Foldesi (Mid) 2009 – Gitchi 2009 Boys Blue Team

Dominic Forsyth (Mid) 2010 – Gitchi 2010 Boys Blue Team

Drew Madill (Fwd) 2011 – Gitchi 2011 Boys Blue Team

Congratulations to these 6 boys, do yourself and the Club proud!!