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CYFL hosts first-ever All-Star Tournament at Northview, North Clay
Over the weekend, Northview High School and North Clay Middle School hosted the first-ever Clay Youth Football League All-Star Tournament that saw six teams – Northview, Greencastle, South Putnam, Sullivan, West Vigo and Cascade – in three divisions – Rookies, Minors and Majors – play a total of 29 games, culminating with three champions being crowned on Sunday evening.
The inaugural CYFL All-Star Tournament was another part of the continuation of the league’s merger with Clay County Titans and them joining the West Central Youth Football League, said League President Jordan Forquer in a statement to the Times.
“In late 2023, representatives from the Clay Youth Football League and the Clay County Titans joined forces to merge back together after a two-year split to make this community whole again. In that merging, the CYFL still holds true with a small change in which the league joined the West Central Youth Football League to compete against nine other youth football programs within the Wabash Valley,” said Forquer. “In the conference, the CYFL is also known as Northview Youth Football to show the unity of a true feeder system to the Northview Knights, as it is the only county high school with a football program under the umbrella of the CYFL. The 2024 season showed great promise for the future as we wanted to focus on four things: Safety of players, development of players, learning Northview terminology and schemes, and players having fun and wanting to come back. The CYFL had over 200 athletes participating this year with four flag teams, three rookie teams, four minor teams, and four major teams.”
Below are recaps for the five participating CYFL teams, with the details being provided to the Times by the league:
Rookies
The CYFL Rookies finished 3-1 and placed second, losing to Greencastle in the championship.
Minors
The CYFL Minors were split into two teams to get as many kids involved as possible. CYFL Black and CYFL Maroon each finished 1-2 on the weekend. They both played hard and competed hard in very tough brackets.
Majors
The CYFL Majors were also split into two teams – fifth grade and sixth grade – but were placed in the same bracket. CYFL 5th grade finished 2-2, playing mostly all sixth-grade All-Star teams throughout the weekend. They were extremely impressive and played very well. CYFL 6th grade finished 4-0 on the weekend, winning the Major League Tournament with a 12-7 victory over Sullivan. This team played great all weekend and showed great composure as they were down 7-6 with a little over a minute left and drove down the field, converting on 4th and long with 30 seconds left on a pass from Case Bath to Noah Isbell that put them on the 12-yard line. Then, Bath threw the game-winning touchdown pass to Ethan Challie to take the lead, 12-7. Sullivan got the ball back with eight seconds, but Caden Longo sealed the deal with the game-ending tackle as Sullivan tried to convert the toss back and run on the final play. All teams played hard all weekend and represented our league and community very well.