The 2008 Soo City United U14 Girls utilized a tenacious team effort to defeat Park Valley United FC in the finals to win the USA Cup soccer championship in Blaine, Minnesota on Saturday, July 16th .
Twenty minutes into the title match Soo City attacker Lila Jarrett was rewarded for going to the net, slipping a cross past the Park Valley goal keeper to ignite the offense. She was not done there. Minutes later Jarrett carried the ball through the defense and drilled a brilliant shot behind the keeper to make it 2-0 at half. Park Valley finally cracked Soo City’s stingy defense with 3 minutes left in the contest, but it would be too late as the Sault Ste. Marie team held onto win the title with a final score of 2-1.
“I am just so proud of these girls. We battled all week. ” said Head Coach Michael Magli after the win. “This is a resilient and hard-working team. We challenged the girls to battle for every ball and to be relentless on offense and defense. To win a USA Cup as a Canadian entry into this tournament is special.”
In semi-final action on Saturday, Soo City United defeated Chicago City FC by a score of 3-0 to punch their ticket to the finals. Goal scorers in that contest were: Sydney Kitchen, Marissa Levesque and Sienna Magli. Earning the shut out in goal was Malaya Schikofsky. “The entire team worked extremely hard all week and never gave up”, remarked Assistant Coach John Iachetta. “They believed in each other and the coaches.”
The USA Cup is the largest youth soccer tournament in North America with over 1,000 teams participating from all over the world.
“We played Park Valley in the Round Robin and after leading 1-0 at half we let the game slip away. We could not handle the Minnesota heat literally and were unable to finish our scoring chances. We were determined to learn from our mistakes and made amends in the championship game,” explained Magli.
The USA Cup Championship roster included: Alexa O’Dell, Allison Elkas, Addison Brown, Danielle Naslovar, Emily Sewell, Kaitlyn Johnson, Kiannah DeLuca, Lila Jarrett, Malaya Schikofsky, Marissa Levesque, Marisol Carota, Natalia Kaminski, Sienna Magli, Sydney Kitchen, Taylor Majic, Thea Iachetta, Michael Magli (Head Coach), John Iachetta (Assistant Coach) and (Manager) Mike Schikofsky.
Source: Mike Magli
