Youth Soccer News: Vista Storm GU14 Premier Dominate Albion Cup National Soccer Showcase

Led by coach Khaled Al-Shafie and assistant coach Sara McCreery, the Vista Storm GU14 Premier team captured the 2012 Albion Cup National Soccer Showcase GU14 Cup championship on Monday, July 24, at Warren Fields on the campus of UCSD.

Vista Storm GU14 Premier dominated the field in the Albion Cup GU14 National Soccer Showcase GU14 Cup division. Photo courtesy of Vista Storm

The girls came out determined and focused on their first game Saturday morning against a fine Albion SC Red team. Storm prevailed with a dominating performance and came away with a 5-0 victory. Their second game, on Saturday afternoon, was against San Diego United FC White and the girls came away with a hard-fought 2-0 victory. Their third game, played Sunday morning, proved to be more of the same domination as the girls controlled the game from start to finish against Murrieta Surf and came away with a 3-0 victory.

The girls finished bracket play with an impressive 10 goals for and 0 goals against. Their aggressive and fast defense of Lindsey Cain, Callie Eidson, Elizabeth DeJesus, Kayleigh Scott, Bella Rivera and co-captain Haley Walker-Robinson shut down every attempt by the opposition. Goal keepers, Natalia Tsepina and Sabrina Ibarra did a superb job in goal.

Midfielders Alexis Porter, Cassandra Bravo, Monsi Ceja, Skye Cerda, and anchored by center midfielders Diana Neff and co-captain Julia Dages, controlled the midfield and tempo of the games throughout. Forwards Myah Merino and Reanna Barrios, along with Ceja, and Bravo, continually pressured the ball in front of the goal to create scoring opportunities.

Sundays, semi-final game against an outstanding team from Northern California, West Coast Soccer Wonder, proved to be a physical and aggressive game that ended in a 1-1 tie and went to penalty kicks. Storm prevailed once again with the final and decisive kick made by Neff to send her team to the championship.

Monday morning’s championship game was against Freedom FC from Chino Hills, CA. Storm struck first with a beautiful long-distance strike from Ceja. They struck again when Neff hit a penalty kick shot inside the left post for a 2-0 lead. Storm scored a third time in the second half with a shot from Dages just inside the 18. Freedom FC scored their only goal late in the game and Storm came away with a 3-1 victory and the championship.

Storm finished the tournament with 15 goals for and two against. Leading scorers for Storm were Reanna Barrios with four goals and Diana Neff with five, two of which were Olympic corner kick goals. Storm had seven different players scoring goals, showing their versatile style of play. Coach Khaled commented to the crowd at the trophy ceremony how proud he is of this team and that they have just barely touched the surface of their potential.