Last games of Range Striker season greeted by warm weather

IRONWOOD – The Range Striker Soccer Club played its last games of the season Saturday at Airport Park in Ironwood. The weather cooperated and moments of sunshine warmed up the parents and coaches lining the field.

"It's much warmer than last year, " Brenda Agee, regional commissioner, said. "It was very cold, wet and windy last time."

The Range Striker Soccer Club runs from July to September with games every Saturday and a team practice during the week. Players are separated by age into one of five divisions; U6 (under 6), U8, U10, U12 or U14. All games are played at the Airport Park fields except for the U14 teams which travel to tournaments to play other area teams.

"This season has been great, the kids have been having a lot of fun. We have more teams, more kids, the coaches have been great with the kids." Jodie Hughes, communications director, said. The number of kids for the 2014 season is the highest in the last five years.

According to Agee the program usually has between 190-200 kids, this season the number was 219. The increase in kids made the addition of teams to the U8 division necessary. All the divisions have four teams, except U8 which has six and the U14 which has two traveling teams.

Volunteers could be seen everywhere, helping in concessions, on the sidelines and at the pavilion setting up for the picnic.

"We have parents, grandparents and people with no kids in the program volunteering." Agee said. "It's obvious people here love the sport. I met a man at the post office and made a comment I was frustrated finding volunteers for soccer, a couple days later he called me and he has been volunteering for a few years now."

Although volunteers have stepped forward in greater numbers since then the program still needs more volunteers to be successful next year. The other problem for the program is the need to redo one of the fields. Since the entire program is run on a volunteer basis the funds are not readily available for the field to be redone.

"It's about $6,000 to redo the field, it is expensive, we do need help with that for next year," Agee said.

After the games players, parents, coaches and other supporters wandered over to the pavilion for a lunch of hot dogs, chips, fruit, dessert and drinks. Each division was assigned a food to bring and the Range Striker's provided the hot dogs.­

"The kids really enjoy the picnic, the season was so much fun." Agee said. "Soccer is for everyone, anyone can play soccer and we love it."

A new season of Range Striker soccer is planned for the summer of 2015. For more information contact Jodie Hughes at rangestrikers@gmail.com.