Raffa soccer tournament set for BGSU

7/9/2008

The Pete Raffa memorial soccer tournament will take place Saturday and Sunday at Bowling Green State University.

The sixth annual round robin preseason showcase features 52 high school boys teams from across the state, with proceeds benefi ting the Pete Raffa scholarship

fund for soccer players at Perrysburg High School.

Each team will play five 40-minute games over the weekend, with play beginning at 9:30 Saturday morning and 8:30 Sunday morning.

It s a great opportunity for coaches to preview their kids as a way to get ready for the start of the season, said tournament director and Perrysburg boys soccer coach Mike Timbrook.

The unique thing that I do here that all the other tournaments don t do is I allow each

coach to pick the competition that they want to play. They give me a wish list of 10 teams, and usually I work it so that they ll see five of the 10 teams put on their list.

Timbrook started the scholarship fund and tournament shortly after Raffa s untimely

death in 2001. Both were fighter pilots with the 180th Fighter Wing and also coached soccer together.

I created it for two main reasons, Timbrook said. Obviously the scholarship is great for the [Perrysburg] soccer players because nothing like that ever existed at the school.

And we never had a preview or tournament like this in northwest Ohio, so now it s basically an opportunity for northwest Ohio to showcase the soccer teams from our own backyard against some of the best teams in the state of Ohio.