AYSO 163 Congratulates Our U12 Girls National Team!!
Every two years, American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO) teams from all over the country come together for a week of soccer, cultural exchange and fun at the AYSO National Games. The week of July 5, 2010, AYSO hosted its National Games at The International Polo Club in The Village of Wellington, Palm Beach County, Florida. The Games selects participating teams by lottery in the boys and girls U10, U12, U14, U16 and U19 age groups approximately one year prior to the event.
Among the 220 teams participating in this year’s event was the Lake Forest/Lake Bluff Panthers, a squad comprised exclusively of players from our own AYSO Region 163 U12 girls division. In May of 2009, our Region 163 was notified it had been selected to send a team from our U12 division to The 2010 National Games. Planning began immediately to field a team that would best represent our soccer program and our community in this prestigious event.
Veteran AYSO Region 163 coaches Mike Kennaugh and Mark Mass were selected to take the helm, train the players and manage the complex logistics involved in coordinating travel, accommodations and scheduling. Player selection took place in October of 2009 and the team began additional training and participated in an indoor winter soccer league. Many additional hours of training and extra games and tournaments continued throughout the spring and early summer. The day before departing for Florida, the team celebrated its hard work by marching in the Lake Bluff 4th of July Parade.
The team was 100% self-funded with the girls and their parents conducting a number of highly successful fundraising activities to cover the cost of tournament preparation, travel, and expenses. Culver’s Restaurant of Libertyville, Jewel Foods of Lake Forest, The Chicago Fire Soccer Club, and Lake Bluff’s Noodle Bar Restaurant played gracious hosts to a variety of fundraising efforts and AYSO Region 163 allowed the National Team to staff the West Campus concession stand during the spring season and garner its profits. The team also sold custom designed collectible trading pins, emblematic of the team’s Lake Forest/Lake Bluff Panther logo.
Coaches Kennaugh and Mass procured a rental home large enough to accommodate the team and the coaches’ families for the team’s stay in Florida. Alicia Kennaugh served as head chef, planning and preparing nutritious meals and Karen Mass performed House Mother duties ensuring the girls completed their daily chores and went to bed on time. The dedication of the coaches and their families were most appreciated by all families involved and by AYSO 163.
The National Games began with an Olympic-esque opening ceremony, complete with the “parade of nations”, speeches by AYSO and local dignitaries, and entertainment. The Panthers marched into the stadium among hundreds of other boys and girls teams representing 18 States, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Trinidad and Tobago.
Day two of The Games staged Soccerfest. Soccerfest is one of the most significant events in the National Games as it sets the tone for the week and embodies the philosophies of the National Games and of AYSO – the focus is on sportsmanship, team spirit and making new friends. In Soccerfest, players from every team in each age division U-10 through U-19 congregate at their appointed fields and through a process designed to maximize the mixing of players from different parts of the country, are divided into random teams. Now players from Arizona and Chicago and from New York and Hawaii are teammates.
Days 3, 4 and 5 consisted of bracket play. The Lake Forest/Lake Bluff Panthers played a competitive round-robin versus teams from Kansas, Utah and heavily favored squads from Florida, California and Hawaii. The Panthers finished this round of competition with 1 win, 1 loss, and 3 ties; placing third in the bracket, regarded as a surprisingly strong finish for a Midwestern team. All games were highly competitive, close matches.
The Panther’s sole loss came against the squad from Pearl City, Hawaii. Ironically, this will be the contest best remembered by the girls from Lake Forest/Lake Bluff as being “the most fun”. After the game, the Hawaiian girls bestowed hand-made leis on each of the Panthers as a sign of friendship and respect and the players and their families gathered on the field to exchange kudos and congratulations. The match typified the spirit in which these games were to be played. Although a hard fought match, the degree of sportsmanship exhibited both on and off the field was exemplary.
AYSO 163 wishes to thank and congratulate all of the girls, their families and the coaches who were a part of this wonderful experience. Rachel, Mary, Jillian, Erin D., Helen, Lisa, Megan, Micaela, Dana, Erin R., Summer, Jen, Tara and Katherine truly did a fantastic job representing our organization and our community on the national stage.
The next AYSO National Games will take place in Knoxville, TN in 2012. Region 163 is already preparing its applications for our U10, U12 and U14 girls and boys with hopes we will, once again, be selected to participate. Our Region 163 is committed to pursuing these and other types of opportunities designed to enrich the soccer experience for our young players. We hope your child will have the opportunity to experience a National Games during his/her tenure in our program.
