Off the Sidelines : Recreation: Women over 30--many with kids on soccer teams--are lining up to play in O.C.’s first division just for them.

Renee Gregston of Fountain Valley was tired of watching everyone else have all the fun.

And while the 35-year-old mother of three never pictured herself running up and down a field, screaming and chasing a ball, she soon found playing soccer was as much fun for her as it was for her kids.

“I’d been sitting on the sidelines for all these years, making uniforms, and I thought, ‘that looks like fun,’ ” Gregston says. “It’s much more aerobic than doing aerobics, and I look at the back of my thighs and think ‘they’ll look better when I’m done with this.’ ”

Orange County’s first-ever women’s over-30 soccer division is in its second season. And while the fall season had barely enough teams for competition, women are lining up to play this season in the Over 30 Division of the Orange County Women’s Soccer League.

Nationally, soccer is the fastest growing girls’ and women’s participation sport, according to the Soccer Industry Council of America in West Palm Beach, Fla. Marie Simon, 52 of Fountain Valley, started the local over-30 division last August after watching her two children, now 18 and 20, grow up playing the game. “I’d been so involved in soccer, I’d wanted to play.”

Simon, who is on the board of the American Youth Soccer Organization, placed an ad in the AYSO newsletter last spring hoping to organize a team of women 30 or older who had little or no soccer-playing experience.

The first season she attracted about 100 women, enough to form six teams. This season, which began March 28 and ends June 27, the division has doubled, with 12 teams of 18 players each (11 are on the field at one time).

Most of the women in the over-30 division are soccer moms, who have been watching their kids play, and sometimes even coaching them, for years.

Now the moms are getting their own day in the sun, and families who are used to watching youngsters run and scream on the soccer field now turn out with lawn chairs and snacks to root for their moms and wives.

“I get a kick out of watching them play,” says Roger Gregston, Renee’s husband, who regularly takes their 4-year-old twins, Lauren and Tyler, and 7-year-old Ryan to watch the games. “Ryan is good, but not quite as aggressive as his mom.”

Ten-year-old Dana Nakano lugs a lawn chair to the side of the field to watch his mom, Sheri Nakano. “I like watching; it’s fun,” he says. “I wouldn’t think of my mom playing soccer, but she’s better than I would have thought.”

Jessica Hunsaker, 12, is an all-star soccer player whose mother, Janice Hunsaker, began playing soccer this season. “Sometimes I tell her how she’s doing,” Jessica says. “Sometimes she doesn’t like me screaming at her.”

Bret Girard, 10, who comes to the games with his brother Bubba, 8, to watch his mother Jme Girard, 35, play, says he also gives his mom coaching tips. “Every day I tell her, ‘God be with you, Mom; have a good day and don’t break a nail,’ ” he says.

Like any sport, the team name is an all-important element, and each women’s team has its appropriate moniker: Kleats and Kleavage, Flirting With Danger, 30 Something, Sister Act, Basic Instinct, The Vamps, and Good N Plenty (the team’s uniforms are pink and black).

“They’re really dedicated,” says Paul Scauzillo, who has been coaching girls’ soccer for six years and now coaches Good N Plenty. “I was coaching their daughters; now I’m coaching the mothers. It’s incredible how far they’ve come since August. I tell the moms they have to live up to the reputation of their kids, and they do a good job of it.”

Although the league is categorized as “non-competitive,” season winners receive $250 per team and second place is awarded $125. The money comes from registration, which this season was $55 a person. Women buy their own uniforms and cleats.

“They take it as seriously as the World Cup games,” says Dave Weston, Good N Plenty’s assistant coach.

At halftime during one of Good N Plenty’s games against Flirting with Danger at McGarvin Junior High School in Westminster, the women gather around jugs of water and orange slices, slap high fives to each other and shout: “Who’s got the candy!”

Good N Plenty member Girard was out early in the game after pulling a muscle in her leg, but she stood loyally on the sidelines, rooting on her teammates.

“It’s fun, a blast,” says the Fountain Valley resident who with her husband, Bob, owns Petro Builders, a Santa Fe Springs construction company. “A lot of us work, and it’s the only time we get out. It’s woman bonding--we have a good time talking and laughing.”

Girard, who lettered in varsity badminton at Fountain Valley High School, says soccer brings out her competitive instinct. “It’s a big stress reliever--it gets your aggression out big time and makes you feel good,” she says. “And it’s better than going out to lunch and getting fat.”

Darlene Yoshikawa, 43, says she has lost seven pounds since she began playing last season. “When I was first called to play on the women’s team, I laughed,” says the Fountain Valley resident. “The first game I ran up and down the field and almost passed out.”

Heather Laporte, president of the Orange County Women’s Soccer League, which has been active for more than 10 years and attracts women from age 18 to 52 (the oldest thus far), offers her encouragement to the over-30 division: “I think it’s great. It’s exciting to see the ladies all excited. They’re beginners, but it’s catching on like wildfire, and I’m sure they’ll really improve.”

Over-30 division founder Simon, who played in the “C” division of the Orange County Women’s Soccer League but found it too “competitive,” has thought of starting a women’s over-40 team as well, but says it might not go over. “No one would want to admit they’re in that category,” says Simon.

Many of the players hope that the women’s leagues will encourage more women to become coaches for the AYSO. Now, most of the coaches in that organization are men. “I’m always coaching against men,” says Yoshikawa, who coaches a girls’ team.

The stage is set for an increase in female players and coaches. Scauzillo says the over-30 league is booming: “If five leave a team, we have five more who want to play,” he says. “A lot of these women have great athletic ability; now they finally have an outlet for it.”

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For more information about joining the women’s soccer league, contact Marie Simon, (714) 842-0061.