Gabby Pellegrini won the state championship for 9-year-olds at Knights of Columbus Soccer Challenge held at St. Joseph’s Church in York.
Gabby began her quest by winning the local competition at the St. Jude Council Knights of Columbus competition in Mountain Top with a score of 150. She moved on to the Northeast Regional Championship held at the Mountain Top Soccer Complex where she finished first with a score of 250, the highest score of any competitor.
At the state competition, Gavvy finished with a 235.
The International Champions are selected based upon their jurisdictional scores. Out of 77 jurisdictions worldwide, Gabby’s precision penalty shooting has placed her in the top one percentile of almost eight thousand participants in the council, district, regional, and state levels of competition.
The Knights of Columbus honored Gabby at their state convention at Kalahari, presenting her with her trophy for being an international shootout winner.
The Knights of Columbus Soccer Challenge is sponsored annually, with winners progressing through local, district, regional and jurisdictional competitions. All boys and girls ages 9 to 14 are eligible to participate and will compete in their respective age divisions. All contestants on the local level are recognized for their participation in the event.
The winners in each age group and both boys and girls from the local levels move on to district competitions followed by regional competitions.
In Pennsylvania which has five regions, the winning boy and girl in each age group move on to the state/jurisdictional competition. At the local level, the competitors kick 15 shots at the goal which is marked off and awards 5, 10 or 20 points depending on the spot the kick is in goal. The district, regional and state competitions use 25 kicks in the same scoring method on the goal.
