One of the top players in the Mount Si High School girls’ soccer program will be playing for a national championship.
Nikki Stanton, who will be a sophomore this fall, plays on the Crossfire P. Lombard GU-15 select soccer team, coached by Porter Lombard, and run by the Redmond-based Lake Washington Youth Soccer Association. That team recently beat teams from several western states to win the 2006 Far West Regional Championships in Boise and advance to the U.S. Youth Soccer National Championship Series July 25-30 in Des Moines, Iowa. (Crossfire P. Lombard won the Washington state GU-15 title to advance to the regional event.)
Stanton is excited. “Winning regionals was the biggest accomplishment in my soccer career,” she said. “I can’t even explain the feeling. I am so pumped for nationals and I know that my team and I want it so bad,” she added.
Stanton’s team will face teams from Texas, Illinois and New Jersey that won their respective regional championships. The top two teams after round-robin play will play for the title.
Stanton’s high school coach, Mount Si coach Darren Brown, is proud of her accomplishments. Brown indicated that Stanton’s hard work has paid off for her. “Nikki’s development comes from her own contributions that she has put in through tremendous hard work and dedication,” he said.
According to another Crossfire parent, this trip is a historic one for the team. It is the first time that a Crossfire girls’ team has ever made it to nationals. They have been dominant in getting there. The team has not lost a game since last December, and during their long winning streak they have outscored opponents 47-6 and have shut out 10 different teams in going 14-0-1.
The national event, according to the U.S. Youth Soccer Web site, caps a year-long series of competitions for both boys and girls in many different age groups, as teams make their way from state-level play into regional competition. It is the country’s most important youth soccer tournament, giving nearly 185,000 players on more than 10,000 soccer teams from each of U.S. Youth Soccer’s 55 state associations the chance to play the best in the nation with a focus on teamwork, fair play and discipline.
