Billings United Soccer Club players recall experience at regional tournament

Last week, Billings United Soccer sent three teams to a club soccer regional tournament. The 2006 boys, 2004 girls and 2000 girls represented Montana against the best competition on the west coast. Ask any of the kids who went to regionals what their biggest takeaway from Boise was, and the first thing they all say is, the high level of competition. “It was really fun it was really high paced and one mistake could lead to a goal and we just had to be sharp with our passes and our touches,” said Taylor Buckingham. Brecken Waddell added, “There’s teams much better than that and just how they play their possession and how we match up to them and just seeing how well we are.” And they all agree, the style of play was very fast. “Very very fast, very fast I thought that we started off a little slow but our confidence built up and we started playing quicker and we got better,” said Izzy Schauber. Despite most teams losing the majority of their games, Billings United Players believe they represented Montana the right way. “I think we represented ourselves really well because we played an Arizona team that plays all summer all winter and we tied them and should’ve won,” said Buckingham. “We’re a small city well out of all the other states we were pretty small all the other teams had like six teams and that was their a team we had team and still did good against them and we represented Billings,” said Lucas Thompson. Maybe the most important thing of all, is the memories the kids made together off the field. “All the time when we got back to the hotel we’d mess around and stuff play Fifa and bring our x-boxes, we had way more fun than the other teams,” said Thompson. “All the other teams had some arguing but our teams so close I thought we really just brought it together. maybe its a Montana thing it seems like all the Billings united teams are really close,” Schauber said.