A half-dozen up-and-coming soccer players from Airdrie will be showcasing their talents at the 2023 Alberta Summer Games, a multi-sport, Olympics-fashioned event that will be held in Okotoks from July 20 to 23.
The boys' and girls' soccer tournaments will feature some of the top U14 players (born in either 2009 or 2010) from across the province.
The local contingent includes three Airdrie FC players on the Zone 2 (Big Country) boys' team, and two players on the Zone 2 girls' team (in addition to three alternates).
Zone 2 is a wide-spanning geographical area that extends as far west as Banff, as far north as Olds, as far east as Brooks, and as far south as Okotoks, but does not include Calgary.
On the boys' side, the Airdrie FC players include Madden Picken, Andres Rodrigues, and Carter Palmeter.
On the girls' team, the Airdrie representatives include Maddy Hargreaves, Megan Jorquera, and Kaviya Ramlu. On top of that, three of the team's alternates are from Airdrie, including Kiarra Sikorski, Presley Fowler, and Chloe Yeo. While the three alternates play for Airdrie FC, Hargreaves and Jorquera play for Calgary Foothills Soccer Club and Ramlu plays for Calgary Blizzard Soccer Club.
Zone 2 head coach Karen Tereposky reckons the calibre of the girls' team this year is akin to a top-level Alberta Youth Soccer League (AYSL) team. She noted that all but three of the team's players feature in the AYSL – the top league for youth soccer players in the province – for most of the soccer season.
Other than the Airdrie players, the Zone 2 roster includes players from Cochrane, Rocky View County, Chestermere, Crossfield, Foothills County, and Okotoks.
“It’s a high level for that age group,” she said. “It’s kind of like the selects out of AYSL. There are quite a few players on ASYL teams who tried out and didn’t make these teams.”
According to Tereposky, the girls' team was put together a few months ago following the zone tryouts. Since then, the team has mostly played exhibition games together against Calgary-based clubs to improve their on-field chemistry in the lead-up to the games.
“When you’re looking at two months-ish to prepare a team, you’re not really going to train,” she said. “You just have to get them to play together. We haven’t done a lot of ‘practices’ but we’ve done friendly games. We just did a bunch of inter-squad when we had a bunch of players, and as we cut the roster down, we started to bring in other players and teams to play against.”
Tereposky said that since the Alberta Summer Games are taking place so close to home this year (the 2018 games, in contrast, were held in Grande Prairie) it's worth the 45-minute trip south to Okotoks to catch some of the impressive athletics that will be on display.
“It should be some really good soccer for people to come out and see,” Tereposky said. “It’s kind of like the rising stars of soccer in Calgary because that 2009 age group, the next step for them is to start being looked at by regional centres and national development centres, and that kind of thing.”
For more on the 2023 Alberta Summer Games, visit albertasummergames.ca or 2023asg.com once the event is underway for scores, schedules, rosters, and other information.
