By mid-July, the priorities for most 13- and 14-year-olds are things like beach trips, family vacations and hanging out with their friends.
For the Riverhounds Development Academy’s 2005 Girls team, however, this midsummer still includes training and one last big event to wrap up the 2018-19 playing season.
The 05 Girls take flight this week for Commerce City, Colo., where they will be one of 10 teams battling to win the U-14 Super Division — the highest level of competition — at US Club Soccer’s National Cup XVIII from July 19-23.
The team qualified for the National Cup last month by winning the Southeast Regional tournament in North Carolina with four straight wins, the last a 1-0 win in the final over Gwinett Soccer Academy (Ga.) to secure their spot.
The trip to Colorado is a strong end to the season for the 05 Girls, who experienced some struggles during their campaign in the Elite Clubs National League regular season. But as the team continued to improve as a group throughout the year they were ready to come up big at US Club regionals after missing out on the ECNL’s postseason.
“I think (our success) is because we all care so much,” right back Bella Vozar said. “Every time we go to practice, we want to do our very best. In every game, we want to do our very best. We all want to take care of ourselves as best we can. We all want to go somewhere with soccer, so every time we show up, it’s a big deal.”
That desire to improve was maintained throughout the season, even if the results weren’t always there on the field.
“Last year, this team had a good first year in ECNL. We actually finished third, but a lot of teams grew this year because it’s Under-14. We had a younger group — we actually have three 06s on the squad — and we didn’t hit growth spurts, so while we were a technically gifted team, we lost a lot of games physically,” said RDA director Scott Gibson, who coaches the 05 Girls along with Niko Katic.
The benefits of playing against ECNL competition on a weekly basis showed at events outside of league play. The 05 Girls won their division in March at the Jefferson Cup, as they outscored opponents by a combined 20-1 over three group stage victories in Richmond, Va., and won the final 2-0 over Michigan’s Liverpool FC Academy. The team was just as strong at US Club regionals. They outscored their opponents 23-1 in three group matches before Alexis Tylenda‘s goal stood up as the only score in the final against Gwinett SA.
“The league we are in is very, very tough competition, so I think it makes it easy for us when we play those (tournament) games,” forward Gianna Babusci said. “But it’s also easy for us to switch our mindset when we go against the top competition.”
“We were really excited going into (regionals), because we knew the ECNL, how elite it was. We had confidence going in, and we just had to play the way we always play to get a win out of it,” central midfielder Fiona Mahan said.
Despite the national event coming up this week, the 05 Girls still have plenty of areas they can get better. Gibson said the team has worked hard to maintain a possession-based style, but learning how to do so against highly physical opposition and not overplay when bringing the ball out of the back are areas the team has upgraded and still can improve further. With the new ECNL season less than two months away, a trophy from an event such as US Club Nationals could provide a perfect springboard into a successful 2019-20 season.
“We’ve had three teams that have won, in the short history that we’ve had, at the National Cup Super group. It’s been since, I think 2015, since we won one, and this would be the youngest group we’ve had go and win it,” Gibson said. “People look at the ECNL standings and see we finished second from the bottom, but that isn’t a true reflection of where we’ll be in years to come. We are a work in progress. … I think if we win this cup, my goodness, it would be a great start to this group really coming out next year.”
With so much potential and the prospect of a group that can stay together for another five years with the RDA, coming out to training sessions in the middle of their summer break doesn’t seem so bad for the players.
“It is tough sometimes, but you have to think about how much better you’re getting, and you can get a step ahead,” Babusci said. “As soon as you get that mindset, it’s so easy to want to practice and get better, because it’s only a short part of the day, and after I do it, I feel more productive during the day.”
“Most of us have been together for a long time, and I think as we keep growing, working harder and keep getting more practices, I think we’ll go up in the standings and get better,” Vozar said.
