On July 24, Brandon Saldana traveled six hours from Garden City to Rochester, NY to attend the 2004 U14 Northeast Open Regional Goalie War Championship Tournament. Held at the Total Sports Experience Complex, this tournament is one of five National Goalie War Association Open Regional tournaments that draw the best goal keeping talent to show their stuff. It included a punt, throw, kick competition, a cannon shot competition as well as the goalie war competition.

Saldana was seeded in third place going into the semi-finals based on the cumulative scores from his undefeated record in the Goalie War competition, third place in the cannon shot competition and sixth place in the punt, throw, kick competition. Since the second place goalie forfeited, the first place goalie got the bye, leaving Saldana to face the fourth place goalie, who he had previously defeated. It was a good match, but once again, Saldana won.

Now he would have to face the first place goalie who had been on the sidelines, carefully studying his technique during the previous semi-finals round. After only about a three-minute break, the championship game was on. It was an exciting match and very close after the first half (8-6), but Saldana left nothing to chance. The final score was 20-11, which spoke for itself - he was the U14 2004 Goalie War champion.

During his five undefeated Goalie War matches, he scored 113 goals and only allowed 25. This past March, Saldana also captured the 2004 U13 Pennsylvania Local Indoor Goalie War Championship. The next stop is the Invitational National championships, which will be held in Florida or California in January 2005.

Watch for him on www.goaliewar.com. Saldana currently plays for the U14 Massapequa Terminators, as well as the Super Y League and the LIJSL ODP Teams.