Kevin Truman wanted to maintain the traditions of the Penn Hills boys soccer program, much like his predecessor Ryan Hankey did. For the past 31 years, the Indians have hosted an indoor soccer tournament in the winter to raise money for the program.
This year, Penn Hills had a minor twist to the formula. Instead of having the event at the Fralic Center, Truman moved the event to the high school gyms and added a junior varsity division.
There were 32 events between all divisions.
“I think the key is to stay ahead of the game,” Truman said. “Having that many teams, there are a lot of logistics involved. You need to have maintenance people, security and trainers over a 14-hour window.”
A team from Central Catholic won the junior varsity division, while Allderdice won the varsity event. The tournament played a futsal style of soccer.
Futsal features unlimited substitutions and is played with a smaller, low-bounce ball. Playing on a gym floor means less space to operate and requires more passing in tight spaces.
“You get a lot of touches,” Truman said. “It’s fast-paced. It transfers from offense to defense quickly. There’s a higher score and a lot of touches.”
Penn Hills entered three teams into the event, one varsity and two junior varsity. All three reached the knockout stage of the tournament.
Truman said he was excited to get the Indians’ players more time playing the game.
“The biggest thing with the winter was we wanted to continue the training,” Truman said. “We want to give them the platform to play. We entered the high school division in Harmarville, which will take them right into the spring, where we are starting a 16U and 19U team.”
During Truman’s first season as the varsity team coach, Penn Hills finished 3-14 overall and was 0-10 in Section 1-4A play.
The Indians had a tough first season as being back in Class 4A after making the WPIAL playoffs in Class 3A two seasons ago.
“While our wins and losses were certainly in the negative category as we moved to Quad-A, playing in the spring will be good preparation,” Truman said. “We need more of that. We want the kids to have more opportunities to play soccer.”