The Cedar Springs Area Select Soccer Association U9 team competed in the Cherry Capital Cup for the first time last weekend and made it to the championship game.

The annual Cherry Capital Cup took place this weekend in Traverse City CASSA teams from Cedar Springs ages 8-18 competed in the tournament. The Cherry Capital Cup is one of the biggest soccer tournaments of the year. Teams from all over Michigan travel every year to compete in the tournament. This year CASSA U9 competed in the tournament for the first time. The team responded to the pressure by being the only CASSA team to qualify for the championship by putting on their best performance of the year thus far. The team reeled off 3 consecutive victories by scores of 3-1, 4-0 and 3-0 by playing fast aggressive offense and had great passing, setting up goals from Alexis Carlson, Makenna Outwin, Mia Joppich, Lillian Briggs and Darrah Miller. The team also played shutdown defense led by Andrea Rios and Loren Riddle, and had great goalkeeping from Alexis Carlson and Elizabeth Fetting. Although the team came up short in the championship, losing to 5-0 to the Copathia Kickers, the team fought hard until the end and learned a lot from the defeat.