By Staff Sgt. Danny McCormick
Beyond the Horizon Public Affairs Office

SOTO CANO AIR BASE, Honduras –The 478th Civil Affairs Battalion of Miami has been busy with more than just facilitating contracts between local vendors and Beyond the Horizon engineers and distributing donated clothing, toys and school supplies at the five construction sites that BTH is responsible for throughout Honduras this year. Capt. Rachelle Hathaway, Sgt. Jose Reyes and rotational Civil Affairs crews have also been working out the logistics of getting schoolchildren from several of the surrounding communities onto Soto Cano Air Base for a soccer tournament.

Children from schools in La Granja, Las Mesas, La Merced, and the Jose Trinidad School in Comayagua were able to participate in the soccer tournament. Kindergarten students from La Granja came to cheer on fellow students from La Merced, an elementary school located nearby.

Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Bergin, 377th Maintenance Company of Manitowoc, Wis., officiated the games while play-by-play announcements and color commentary were provided by Petaluma, Calif. native, Staff Sgt. Gregory McCoy of the 801st Engineer Company, Vallejo, Calif. Sgt. 1st Class William Estremera, 377th Theater support Command, provided musical entertainment during the games and operated the public address system.

La Merced and Las Mesas were the first two teams to face each other in the tournament. Each of these teams wore similar white shirts, so it became a 'skins' versus shirts game. Las Mesas kicked the first goal in the second half of the game, but La Merced answered with two goals of their own to win the game.

La Merced then had to defend their title against the fully-uniformed Jose Trinidad team. After several intense moments of back and forth action up and down the field, Jose Trinidad was able to pull off a 3-0 victory against the exhausted La Merced team.

To choose the overall winner of the tournament a kick-off between the two winning teams was conducted and La Merced again came out on top as the first place winner.

Lt. Col. Michael Moody presided over a prize ceremony held after the tournament. Spc. Juan Alavera and Spc. Julio Leal called the names of the prize winners, while U.S. Marine Sgt. John Strosnider, 3rd Civil Affairs Group, San Diego, handed out prizes and posed for pictures with the recipients. BTH service members had donated enough prizes so that each of the children received a prize. School supply packages were given to each of the four schools, and the teachers each received U.S. Army south ball caps. A student from La Merced won the largest of the prizes, a brand new ten speed bike, through a random drawing.