County Girls Win World Soccer Title at AYSO Tournament
With all eyes on the World Cup soccer tournament, a team of Ventura County girls quietly won the world title for their age group Sunday in San Francisco.
The 11- and 12-year-old girls managed five consecutive shutout victories to take gold medals in the America Youth Soccer Organization world games, a tournament that drew 96 teams from as far away as Denmark.
“This is probably a once-in-a-lifetime shot for these kids,” said Ed Guzman, the coach who helped put together the Ventura Girls Soccer team for the tournament.
The youth organization typically hosts American tournaments, but expanded the contest to foreign teams because of this year’s World Cup. Seven foreign countries sent teams to San Francisco.
Guzman won a slot for a Ventura team in the world tournament through a lottery and then put together a group of girls to compete.
Seven of the 15 girls had played on an all-star team for the Ventura region, and others were picked in a series of try-outs. Most came from the city of Ventura, though a few members live in Oxnard and Santa Paula.
With a team chosen by March, coaches held practices three nights a week. The practice paid off when the tournament started last Wednesday. That day, the Ventura Girls shut out two California teams, Concord, 3-0, and San Mateo, 6-0. On Friday, they defeated two more state rivals, Palo Alto, 3-0 and Westchester, 3-0.
Saturday they won a semifinal match against Brigham City, Utah, 3-0. And the final Sunday matched them against Laguna Niguel. That game was decided in the third period of overtime with a single goal.
“The magnitude of this victory for these girls, this is a real eye-opener for the whole girls’ program,” said Guzman, whose daughter, Heidi, played goalkeeper for the championship team.
The other players include: Shannon Fink, Alex Gientke, Brenna Huhn, Natasha Ikeda, Megan Kelly, Corrie Leonardo, Ashley Miller, Kelly Nash, Darcy Perez, Chelsea Rasmussen, Nicki Rideout, Shayna Rosenburg, J.J. Toohey and Paige Wilson.
