Mariner hosting 3 tourneys
Haris Muhic scored off a corner kick by Camilo Avendano Wednesday night to break a scoreless tie and send Cape Coral to a 5-0 victory over South Fort Myers.
The Seahawks (13-1, 6-0 district) host Bishop Verot in a nondistrict match on Friday, but the highlight of the weekend is Mariner’s holiday invitational tournaments for boys and girls teams.
Mariner’s campus will be extra busy this weekend with eight soccer games on tap for Friday and 16 more starting at 9 a.m. on Saturday in addition to the two-day Tritons’ boys Basketball Shootout in Frank Morris Memorial Gymnasium.
The Tritons take an 11-0 record into the hoops shootout, opening against LaBelle at 8 p.m. Friday. They bring the shootout to a close at 8 p.m. on Saturday against Southwest Florida Christian.
The Tritons Shootout is one of two tourneys in Lee County over the holidays, the other being the City of Palms Classic at Bishop Verot, which begins Friday afternoon.
Mariner’s tourney started out as a bracketed event several years ago, but the format was changed to a shootout this year.
“We abandoned the tournament format and the City of Palms had something to do with that,” said Tritons coach James Harris. “We didn’t want to play a tournament with Friday, Saturday and Monday games, but we wanted it to be a competitive shootout before Christmas.
“We wanted the teams here to try to get better, win or lose,” added Harris. “We wanted to play two competitive games at home to get tested. Then we’ll take a week off and rest up over Christmas with our families.”
With some unique scheduling, nine teams are participating in the shootout with no team being declared the overall winner as in a bracketed tournament.