Okanagan FC U-15 came home with some hardware on Thanksgiving Monday.
Before their flight home on Oct. 14, the team won the bronze medal at the 2024 Toyota National Championships in Quinte West, Ont., beating Inter Halifax SC in a shootout, a team they lost to earlier in the tournament.
In a cold and windy bronze-medal game, the game remained tied 0-0. The shootout went eight rounds, where Okanagan FC eventually won 6-5.
Goaltender Aidan Carreon Sabatino made big saves throughout the tournament, including in the bronze-medal clinching game.
Okanagan FC began the tournament with a 5-0 win against Yellowknife YK Galaxy on Wednesday, Oct. 9. In that game, they got five second half goals from Kieron Boersma (twice), Toyosi Ilori, Blake Gerding, and Maximo Trozzo.
The second round-robin game on Friday, Oct. 11 is when Okanagan lost to Inter Halifax SC 2-0.
In the quarterfinals the next day, Okanagan beat CS Montreal Centre in dramatic fashion to advance to the semis. Down 1-0 in extra time, Kieyran Ragoonaden scored to tie the game and force a shootout where Trozzo, who was added to the roster just for the nationals, scored the game-winning goal.
On Sunday, the team's hope at the national championships came to an end as they lost to Burlington Force SA 6-0.
But the team still brought home bronze with their win on Monday.
Burlington Force SA beat Edmonton BTB SC in the finals to win the nationals.