STING BATTLE IT OUT AT FORT DIX

STING BATTLE IT OUT AT FORT DIX

Fort Dix, New Jersey (July 13, 2008) - The United States Army uses Fort Dix to train their soldiers for war, so it was only appropriate that the Sunrise 96/97 team, playing in the Central Jersey Invitational on the army base at Fort Dix, compete in what seemed like a soccer version of "war", battling through five games in a 32-hour period, three of which were like engaging in hand to hand combat they were so tough. The Sting's summer adventure took the team to Fort Dix to compete against some of the top teams in the northeast and beyond. 24 U11 teams entered this tournament, including teams from New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Canada. Most of the teams entered were "Select" teams. "Select" teams are essentially teams composed of top players from several local clubs, that consolidate to form these teams for the summer, basically, they are all-star teams. Also, in New Jersey, u11s play in an 11v11 format. For the Sting, this was the very first time the team would compete in 11v11. The combination of playing such high level competition in an 11v11 format was too inviting for the Sting to pass up.

Sunrise, playing in the Premier (MAPS) division, was placed in the same bracket as the TSF Academy, European Soccer Academy and Soccer Domain. The first match was against the Soccer Domain Colchester's. The Colchester's are the Select version of the Montclair Colchesters and was composed of players from Montclair as well as a few other clubs. Montclair is ranked number one in the country by USARank as of the date of this writing. This was a fantastic game against two evenly matched teams. Danielle Andersen threatened Soccer Domain early with a good scoring opportunity. Later in the first half, Mariana Speckmaier cut through three defenders in the box, in a razzle dazzle display, and put the ball into the net from short range to score the lone goal of the game to give Sunrise the 1-0 win. Late in the game, the Colchesters mounted a ferocious late attack, getting off four corner kicks in the final five minutes, but the Sting kept the ball out of the net. On the final corner kick, a Colchester shot got passed the Sunrise keeper, who was off her line, when the ball was cleared just before entering the goal by Sunrise back Julia Jaffe, who took the ball out of the air to clear it and secure the win.

The Sting played the European Soccer Academy in the second game. ESA was overmatched in this game and Sunrise cruised to an easy win. That would be the only easy game of the tournament for the team.

On Sunday, in the third game, Sunrise was matched up with the TSF Academy. TSF is ranked 3rd in New Jersey and 25th in the country. Sydney Talbot had a good game on the midfield flanks sending off several nice through passes that kept constant pressure on TSF. The Sting came out on fire in this game, scoring a goal 22 seconds into the game when Bailey Pombrio crossed the ball and Dallas Dorosy took a shot that rebounded off the keeper, Alana Hockenhull scooped it up and knocked it in for the 1-0 lead. Brittany Simpson scored on a 35-yard shot from the right side of the field to make it 2-0. Sara Graves found Hockenhull down the left flank and she beat two defenders to make it 3-0. Hockenhull later sent a cross to Andrea Noriega for the 4-0 advantage. TSF scored late for a 4-1 final.

The 3-0 record put Sunrise into the semi-final match against Lakeshore (Canada). This would turn into another exciting Sunrise match as the team was thrilled to be playing one of the top teams from another country. It was a really tough match, the Sting had more scoring chances but could not put the ball away. The Sunrise defense, led in this match by Melissa Curran, Julia Jaffe, Rylee Simons and Sara Graves was just stellar, keeping Canada at bay the entire game. The game, played in 90 degree plus weather, ended 0-0. That sent the game into two five-minute overtimes. The two teams continued to battle through the overtimes but no one could score. That meant penalty kicks. The pressure was just intense, as the both teams had played so hard throughout the tournament, and had traveled so far, to get to this point.

Canada had the first penalty kick and scored. The Sunrise shot was stopped. Canada had the 1-0 advantage. Canada missed their second shot and Sara Graves scored for Sunrise to tie it at 1-1. In the third round, Canada scored and Speckmaier evened it at 2-2. Canada made it 3-2 on the next shot and then Noriega made it 3-3. Canada missed their fifth shot when Sunrise keeper Sara Bowden made a fantastic save but the Sting could not put the game away on their fifth shot. Setting up another round of pks. Canada missed again and then Dallas Dorosy, stepped up and nailed the shot to give the Sting the win. To call the aftermath of that shot dramatic would be the understatement of the year, to our team it felt like the girls had just won the World Cup. The girls mobbed each other in celebration, they were so happy, players were laughing, crying and screaming with emotion. Nevertheless, the girls understood that the Canadian team deserved this win as much as Sunrise, and the two teams congratulated each other in the truest spirit of sportsmanship

Just two hours later, Sunrise was in the championship match against DTS Roda. It would be the third game of the day for the Sting and the fifth in two days, and 11v11 at that. DTS Roda is a Select team composed of many of the top players from New Jersey. This was another excellent team. They had two players who were physical giants that were fast, strong and skilled, looking more like u16 superstars than u11 players. DTS took an early 1-0 lead but the Sting tied the game at the nine-minute mark when Simpson passed the ball 30 yards from the right side of the field to the left side of the box when Hockenhull took the ball out of the air and scored from 16 yards. DTS put together two more to take a 3-1 advantage, but Sunrise scored again to narrow the lead to 3-2 on a beautiful shot from Pombrio via a Speckmaier pass that floated over the keeper. The Sting tried desperately to tie the game in the final five minutes but could not get the ball into the net as DTS won the title for the championship. Vanessa Agudelo paced the Sting attack with some powerful midfield play in this game and throughout the tournament.