U16 Stratford Strikers Boys fell short at Graham Bunting Classic

Stratford’s Cole Weyers (16) attempts to score with the header against Paris FC at the Graham Bunting Classic on June 6.

Going into the 2026 Graham Bunting Classic, the Stratford Strikers want to win the gold medal after falling short last season, competing in U15. So far this season, the U16 squad won a silver medal at First On The Turf in Guelph last month.

Head coach Sean Brooks says the team aims to reach the finals in the upcoming tournament, motivated by a previous loss in a penalty shootout in last season’s classic.

“The expectation is we'd like to make it to the finals. In almost every tournament we've entered, both last year and this year, we've made it to the finals. We're a very competitive team,” Brooks said.

“We played a tournament in April in Guelph, the First On The Turf at the end of April, and we ended up making it to the finals there, and we lost in a nail-biter of a penalty shootout. So we're all still feeling the sting of that one a little bit, and we're looking for an opportunity for some redemption here.”

Stratford opened their round-robin play against Paris, Ontario’s Paris FC, at the SERC Park in an early morning match. Both sides settled to a scoreless draw as the teams weathered the high winds and humidity.

Brooks liked how the team performed in the opener, particularly the new addition to the team after an injury to their regular before the tournament.

“Yeah, I thought overall we put in a great performance. We've been struggling over the recent weeks just with injury problems and stuff like that, and we've been struggling at the start of this season to kind of find our form and find our rhythm, but I thought throughout the whole game we did an excellent job of keeping our shape and keeping our structure, and they're a very strong team that plays in a very strong league in a different geographical region to us,” Brooks said.

“So to be able to go out and hold them to nil-nil, and to actually create more chances and opportunities than they did throughout the entirety of the game, while recognizing that we had our goalie, who is not our normal goalie, as our goalie got hurt on Tuesday in our league game, so we had to put a goalie in who's never played before, and he did a fantastic job, and everybody worked well together and communicated really well together to secure a good result, and hopefully in our next games we can put the ball in the back of the net to set us up for more success moving forward.”

In the afternoon, Stratford faced Owen Sound United at a humid Queens Park in downtown Stratford. The Strikers lost a key match 2-0, bringing their tournament record to 0-1-1.

In their final round-robin game of the day, they responded with a 1-0 win over Byron Yellow, raising their overall record to 1-1-1. This victory keeps their hopes of reaching the finals alive, with the last round-robin match set for June 7 against the last-place Oakridge Rangers at the SERC Track Field.

In their tournament finale, the Strikers ended their run on a positive note, winning 4-0 over Oakridge to finish second in Pool B behind tournament champions Paris FC.

Stratford resumes their regular-season schedule in Guelph on June 9, facing the Jr. Gryphons. After opening the season with a 3-1 victory over Owen Sound United on May 12, the team has earned just one point in their last three games, placing them eighth with a record of 1-1-2.