Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association’s State Cup kicks off next month.
The competition is a single-elimination tournament. The State Open Cup is for the top teams and it’s the pathway to the National tournament. The Challenge Cup is for all teams at the Under-10 and U-11 level, as there is not a State Open Cup in those age groups. For U-12 to U-16, it’s for mid- to lower-tier teams.
For both competitions, the first round for the boys is on the weekend of March 4 and 5 while it’s for the girls the following weekend, March 11-12.
The boys play their second round match-ups on March 18 and 19 while the girls do the same on April 1 and 2. The competition takes its traditional Easter/Passover break and resumes with the third round for both genders on April 15-16. An extra round, if needed for the age groups with the most teams, will be played on April 29-30.
The quarterfinals will be held across Eastern New York on May 6-7 and the semifinals on Saturday, May 20. All rounds up to and including the semis are played on teams’ home fields.
The exception to this schedule is for the State Open Cup in the U-19 division as college players compete in that age group so that starts in May when the players are returning from school.
The State Cup finals again will be played at a neutral site, Stringham Park in LaGrange, N.Y. on June 3-4. The LaGrange Soccer Club has hosted the State Cup finals for more than a decade as their wonderful grass fields are centrally-located in Eastern New York and are a short corner kick from the Taconic Parkway. Stringham Park started hosting soccer games in 1998 on property that was once a large beef cattle farm owned by Karl Ehmer.
For more information about the State Cup, contact the Eastern New York office at 516-766-0849.
