After dropping their opening game of the tournament, the Moose Jaw Storm under-20 boys soccer team was able to string together three straight wins to win the FCR Winterfest Soccer Tournament in Regina this past weekend.

The Storm knocked off SUSC Saskatoon, 3-1, in the final on Sunday, avenging their tournament opening loss on Friday.

“We suffered a bad defeat on the very first night and that could have knocked most teams down, but we started to use that to our advantage and started to pull back,” said Storm head coach Jordan Jeffery.

SUSC Saskatoon beat Moose Jaw 5-0 to open the tournament on Friday. The Storm won their next round robin game before taking out Hollandia Saskatoon, 2-1, in the semifinal to set up the rematch with SUSC Saskatoon.

This was the first time heading out of town for a tournament for many of the players and Jeffery said he felt like that may have played into their lack of success in the opening game.

“Everybody was a little bit nervous on that first night and they took advantage of that,” said Jeffery. “They were a better team than us on Friday night, but we knew what to expect the second time around, all the boys were fantastic and we got a much deserved win in the end.”

The Storm hadn’t played any competitive games heading into the tournament and Jeffery said they were able to improve with each outing.

“We haven’t had too much time to try out different things to see what works and we had to change our initial plan for the tournament and the boys adapted and took it in stride and ended up playing better than they thought they could,” said Jeffery.

“We were a little bit off beat in that first game and they could have collapsed at that point and given up for the rest of the weekend, but they were actually really determined to make sure that didn’t happen again. We don’t have quitters on our team, we have a bunch of players that really want to fight and win things.”

The Storm are hoping to pick up some exhibition games between now and their next tournament, which will be here in Moose Jaw in early March.