From the ice to the Florida heat, Canadian defender Kerfalla Toure is making his mark

Kerfalla Toure gave up hockey to focus on soccer, a move that has paid off handsomely for Florida Atlantic University.

The 24-year-old centre back from Dorval, Que., has helped the Owls reach the 48-team NCAA Division I Men’s Soccer Championship for the first time, with a first-round date Thursday at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. The winner will face No. 7 Georgetown on Sunday in Washington, D.C.

Florida Atlantic (12-3-2) earned its first NCAA championship appearance by winning the American Conference tournament, defeating rival Florida International University 3-2 in Saturday’s final in Charlotte, N.C.

“We’re all proud of how it’s gone so far but we also know that it isn’t over,” said Toure. “And that we can really make a special run here.”

A win Thursday will tie the 1996 FAU team for most wins in a season (13).

UCF (10-6-3) earned its 10th trip to the NCAA tournament by winning the Sun Belt Conference Tournament championship, downing No. 12 Marshall 3-1 in the final.

The Owls won 3-1 when they last met the UCF Knights, in 2022 when both teams were members of the American Conference. UCF had won the previous four meetings.

Toure is the lone Canadian on a global FAU squad that draws from the United States, Austria, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Ivory Coast, Mali, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Toure calls it a multicultural brotherhood who share the same goal — winning a championship.

“I think we have just as much fun on the field as we do off the field,” he said happily. “There’s no groups, no cliques. Just a group of 28 guys that like hanging out with each other. It’s really a good time. It’s very rare to have a team that’s this tightly bonded.”

A senior, Toure is in his second year at FAU.

He came from Elmira College in New York state where he played both hockey and soccer. As a member of the Soaring Eagles, he made the NEHC (New England Hockey Conference) all-rookie team in 2022-23.

Younger brother Djibril Toure, a six-foot-seven 203-pound defenceman, signed an entry-level contract with Ottawa Senators in September 2023 and is currently with the American Hockey League’s Belleville Senators.

Djibril Toure, now 22, spent the 2022-23 season with the Ontario Hockey League’s Sudbury Wolves, recording five goals, 11 assists and a team-leading 91 penalty minutes in 57 regular-season games in his first major junior season. He went on to play a total of 81 games for the Wolves before being traded to Windsor Spitfires in January 2024 ahead of the OHL trade deadline.

Both brothers wore No. 33 for a time, although Djibril now wears No. 44 in Belleville.

Kerfalla Toure was three when he started playing soccer and seven when he added hockey.

He grew up playing soccer for a club in Outremont before joining CS St-Laurent, where he played from 13 to 18 under father/coach Fode Toure. Along the way he played with future Canadian internationals Ismael Kone and Moise Bombito, who remain good friends.

“It was always 50-50,” Toure said of his love for the two sports. “I loved playing both sports. They were so different but so similar.”

He points to the “adrenalin and competitiveness” that hockey brought out of him on the ice as well as the team bond on the soccer pitch.

Toure also played football, as a safety, with College Sainte-Anne in Lachine, Que.

“It was the most difficult decision in my life to choose one over the other when I had to leave home,” he said.

That was at 18 when he quit soccer to pursue junior hockey. He spent three years in the Central Canada Hockey League (CCHL) with the Carleton Place Canadians and Hawkesbury Hawks before being recruited to play hockey at Elmira, which is in the Division 3 United Collegiate Hockey Conference.

The soccer coach at Elmira knew Toure’s father and enticed him back to the beautiful game.

“I never wanted to quit soccer so I was 100 percent into that,” said Toure.

He was a two-sport athlete for two years at Elmira — playing 35 games for the soccer team and 40 for the hockey team — before heading south to Florida after a championship season with the Soaring Eagles. While he had to give up hockey, the move has come with plenty of other perks going to school in Boca Raton.

“It’s pretty nice,” he said with a laugh. “They have their slogan ‘Winning in Paradise’ and it’s literally that. It’s so sunny, You’re walking around palm trees. I feel like I’m on vacation nine months a year. It doesn’t seem real.”

Toure has played 16 games, including 15 starts, this season for 1,302 minutes of playing time. Only fellow defender Fabrizio Cubeddu played more (1,366 minutes).

Away from the pitch, Toure is majoring in finance.

The NCAA tournament culminates in the College Cup, to be held Dec. 12-15 at First Horizon Stadium in Cary, N.C

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 20, 2025.