Before the 2026-27 high school athletic season begins, Berkshire High School will host a penalty kick shootout and three-on-three soccer tournament fundraiser to support the Berkshire Badgers’ soccer teams at Great Lakes Cheese Stadium in Burton on July 25 at 10 a.m.
“We do need to raise funds for both the girls’ and boys’ team, so we are using the momentum to get high school kids but also all ages to come have a fun day and continue that community sense of soccer in the area to raise some funds for our programs,” said Berkshire girls’ soccer Coach Stephanie Franks.”
Interested teams of three can compete in either a penalty kick shootout or a three-on-three tournament for a registration fee of $10 until July 17.
“In the penalty game tournament, we are going to do a point system, we have not broken out what the point system is going to be, but we are not going to have changing goalies because that can be subjective, but we are going to have a net on the goal where there are different places where you can hit for a different points,” Franks said.
She added that for the three-on-three tournament, the teams will compete in brackets until a winning team is crowned.
According to the first-year coach, once all entries have been submitted by the deadline, brackets will be made for each tournament. In addition to soccer activities, Berkshire will also host several activities including cornhole, kam jam, hacky sack and face-painting.
Franks acknowledged that the theme of the day may be centered around soccer, but it is also a day of fun offered to all families from the community.
“If you are waiting around, we want it to be fun so we will have cornhole, we’ll have Kam Jam, we will have face-painting, we will have a lot of hacky sack,” she added. “There will be a lot of fun things to do for the kids, but we really wanted to have a community day.”
Franks said that all donations received from the event will be distributed to the Berkshire soccer team’s funds. People will have the option to donate to either the girls or boys’ teams or can offer donations to each team.
She noted that the Berkshire soccer program expects most of the donations to cover the essentials such as video systems for the season, new balls, socks and shin guards and windbreakers.
“I think any healthy program should be able to replenish equipment, think long vision about what is something we could bring that is something that we would need to continue to compete at the level that we would like to compete at,” Franks said.
Franks said that the soccer tournaments are open to all ages, starting with student-athletes at the elementary school level beginning in first grade to high school students and will afford alumni the opportunity to participate as well.
She highlighted the importance of having Berkshire alumni participate in the event, as they represent what the significance of competing in the soccer program did for their high school experience.
In addition to raising funds for the soccer programs, Franks said that the goal is to promote the culture of Berkshire soccer and instill interest in younger athletes at the youth level.
Franks said that the Berkshire soccer programs are trying to build momentum off what was a successful soccer clinic that she and Berkshire boys’ soccer Coach Russ Buckley ran earlier in the summer.
“A lot of it is that we realized is that a lot of kids came up and a lot of kids were excited about it, and we talked about it, so we used it as a launching pad for the upcoming activity,” she added.
Franks added that she is optimistic for a big turnout for the event and will take note of some of the highlights as her goal is to make the soccer fundraiser an annual tradition in Burton in the summer over the next several years.
“We are just trying to expand it to younger ages and to try to help the visibility of the coaches for the high school and the middle school is important to us,” said Franks.
