This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Sports

Medford Soccer Tournament Plays for Peace

Multi-cultural tournament reunites friends, former teammates.

The third annual multi-cultural soccer tournament was held at the Patchogue-Medford Youth Soccer League fields in Medford on Saturday.

A men’s "Peace" division and women’s "Unity" division of eight teams each competed throughout the day, with the team sponsored by PJ Sports winning for the men and the team sponsored by the Patchogue-Medford Congress of Teachers in the women’s division. Both winning teams earned a trophy, which in was won by teams sponsored by .

The tournament was organized by Rob Calarco through the office of Leg. Jack Eddington. Calarco said the tournament was originally organized to unite the local multi-cultural community in the wake of the 2008 in Patchogue.

“It was a way of trying to bring together different people and different cultures in something that we all kind of share in common,” Calarco said.

This is the first year that features a women’s division in the tournament.

Many of teams that participated used the tournament as a way to reunite with friends and former teammates

Ken Blumenthal coached one of the newly formed women’s team, sponsored by PBA Suffolk, which consisted of an all Patchogue-Medford team. Blumenthal said his team was formed by girls on his travel team that wanted to participate in the tournament.

Sarah Blumenthal, who played on the team, said that it has been three years since she last played with her teammates.

It was a similar experience for Janice Campbell, who played on a team sponsored by the A VOICE organization, which has previously held cultural community events in Patchogue and Medford.

“I used to play on a team a few years ago with a bunch of these guys, and they just asked me to come back today and play,” Campbell said.

Calarco said that they intend to continue and grow the tournament next year.

Other sponsors of the event included Church of Nazarene, YMCA, Pita House, Gershow Recycling and PBA-Suffolk.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?