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By DIANE GASPER-O'BRIEN
Special to Hays Post
The Hays Soccer Club has served as a training ground for budding stars for the local high schools — and beyond — for more than 20 years.
Numerous HSC players have moved on to play in college at several levels, including NCAA Division I.
College is still a few years off for Cedric Durr, an eighth-grader at Hays Middle School. But he can already talk of playing at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Fla.
Cedric closed out a whirlwind summer in July by finishing fourth in the U.S. Youth Soccer Keeper Wars National Championships.
Keeper Wars is a one-on-one competition for goalkeepers to showcase their talents. And Cedric put on quite a show at nationals while representing the HSC in style in his first year of Keeper Wars competition.
After going 4-0-1 in pool play of the U12-U13 age division, Cedric qualified for the semifinal rounds. When the last goal had been scored, the HSC could boast of a national finalist.
It’s an experience Cedric won’t soon forget, and he hopes to use what he learned from Keeper Wars competition to help the local club’s U-15 Predators team this year. The Predators and other HSC teams opened their 2022 fall season this weekend at the Stryker Cup in Wichita.
“We were really happy that Cedric did so well this summer, and it was fun to track his progress at nationals,” said Mark Luck, the Predators’ coach. “Cedric has really excelled and improved a lot in the short time he’s been with us. We’re really looking forward to this season.”
Cedric hadn’t even heard of Keeper Wars until he joined the HSC last year after moving to Hays from Christiansburg, Va., when his parents, Boyce and Tara Durr, both accepted positions at Fort Hays State University.
Cedric admitted that moving halfway across the country to unfamiliar territory was a little scary.
However, he quickly found a niche with the Predators, where he played both on defense and at goalkeeper last fall. He then enjoyed a successful season in his first school competition with the seventh-grade Hays Middle School team in the spring.
The Hays Soccer Club had been promoting the Keeper Wars competition for a few years, so Cedric decided to give it a try.
Players qualify for nationals by winning one of the Keeper Wars’ City Tour or Showcase Tour events.
The last qualifier for this year was scheduled for the Fourth of July weekend in St. Louis, Mo. Cedric had not planned to attend this event because he was supposed to visit his grandparents in Pensacola, Fla. A COVID infection caused a last-minute change of plans, freeing Cedric up for that weekend.
So Cedric’s dad checked to see if there were still spots available in Cedric’s age division. With the last spot in the 20-player competition at St. Louis secured for Cedric, a hectic month of July began for the Durr family.
After Cedric claimed top honors in his age division in St. Louis, the Durrs had 48 hours to accept one of the 26 automatic qualifying spots and began making plans for their trip to Florida.
Part of Cedric’s success stems from his being a student of the game, which isn't a surprise since he's a straight-A student in the classroom.
While waiting his next turn up at the Keeper Wars events, Cedric would watch other competitors and take note of their tendencies – both physical and mental.
Cedric saw that one keeper had trouble going to his left. So Cedric, a lefty, took advantage of his natural curve kick to place the ball in the right side of the net.
He also has other natural characteristics that give him a bit of an advantage. He is tall for his age. He is 5-foot, 10 inches and didn’t turn 13 years old until August 19.
Coach Luck has high hopes for Cedric.
“Goalkeeper is a difficult position, and Cedric does such a good job of keeping his cool, not giving the other team an advantage,” Luck said. “And he has no problem in stepping in and playing any position we ask him to. We’re really excited for his future – just keep working and improving.”
