Skip to content

Soccer player Caleb Vallance impresses premier league team

Local youth receives recommendation for BC play as Powell River Villa shows interest
vallance
YOUNG GUN: Brooks Secondary School student Caleb Vallance will be joining the BC Soccer Premier League as the star soccer player looks ahead to a busy schedule of soccer and school. Contributed photo

Grade eight student Caleb Vallance is on the Brooks Secondary School principal’s honour role. The 14-year-old excelled on the track at the recent North Island Track and Field Championships, where he placed second in the grade nine junior boys 400 metres, 1,500 metres and shot put, and was on the first-place 4x400 relay team. But it is on the soccer field where Vallance truly shines.

Vallance has been receiving attention since his days of playing U12 Powell River rep soccer from 2014 to 2016.

In 2016-2017, he started playing for U14 Upper Island Riptide out of Comox in Vancouver Island Premier League (VIPL). This spring, he was recommended for the Vancouver Island Wave in the BC Soccer Premier League.

Vallance follows two other Powell River players into the premier league. Tim Wrigglesworth registered when he was 17 years old with Mountain United FC and Hannah Gray played with Vancouver Island Wave, registering when she was also 17. Valance is three years their junior.

Vallance has been asked to join Riptides U15 VIPL team in their run to provincials in July and Powell River Villa soccer club president Jamie Zroback said his club will be looking at Vallance’s potential when he’s expected to join the local men’s seven-a-side league.

“He’s a good young player, very committed,” said Scott Fisher, who runs weekly practices at Brooks turf that Vallance attends.

Vallance said keeping up with his schedule is demanding. He misses school every Wednesday to take the ferry over to Victoria, and then catches the ferry back in time for school the next day.

“I’ll wake up normally for 7:30 but whenever I have homework, I wake up at 7,” he said. “I walk to school, get any homework that I’ll be missing, go home and do my homework.”

When he does have a night to relax, Vallance watches soccer, of course, and practises in the basement for a few hours. When he was younger, Vallance did not sleep with a soccer ball, but it would be beside his bed.

According to Fisher, “You don’t see him walking around the streets much without a ball at his feet.”