This year’s Quesnel Youth Soccer Association(QYSA) Annual Gold Pan Tournament will honour Kaylee Iverson’s memory with a new award.
Kaylee Iverson, from 150 Mile House, who tragically passed in a motor vehicle accident in February 2023, was “one of the most dedicated athletes the club had,” says Rob Lentz, a Coach and the Vice–President of the QYSA.
“Her and her family would travel to Quesnel so she could train with our club here. She embodied dedication to the sport, and she was such a supportive, encouraging, and beloved teammate who lit up the room. We’re proud to celebrate her legacy with this award.”
Lentz says the Kaylee Iverson Award will be handed out to the most dedicated player in Kaylee’s age group when she played with the club [U15, U14].
“It was a real impact here in Quesnel too,” Lentz says. “This award is one thing we’re [QYSA] are proud of this year. Going forward, we’ll announce and hand out this award every year.”
This year’s Gold Pan Tournament starts tomorrow [Friday, April 11] and will run through the weekend. The finals are being played on Sunday, April 13.
There are over 70 games scheduled, with close to 50 teams from five different clubs across the Cariboo and North participating in and outside of the Indoor Soccer Facility in Quesnel.
Lentz says it is the largest tournament he has seen since COVID.
“Initially, I was only building the tournament for the indoor portion, but we had so many teams that we had enough games to go until three o’clock in the morning. But we’re fortunate this year; we looked at the weather forecast, and it looks to be warm. We thought we had to risk it, and we have three outdoor fields to play on this year.”
The Gold Pan Tournament will be what Lentz calls an “icebreaker” tournament for many teams that are not able to play through the winter.
There will be several youth teams at this tournament who are scheduled to play in the Slurpee Cup in Kamloops. Two teams, Lentz says, to watch out for are the Quesnel’s U17 girls and the Quesnel U11 boys. The U17 girls are on track to qualify for the provincials being held in Prince George in a couple of months.
The U11 boys’ team is scheduled to play two premier series tournaments, the Canada Day Cup in Kelowna, and an international tournament later in the summer held in Surrey.
The first game of the Gold Pan Tournament starts on Friday, April 11, at 6 p.m.
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