Several up-and-coming female soccer players from Rocky View County (RVC) and its surrounding communities 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 girls' soccer tournament will feature some of the top U14 players (born in either 2009 or 2010) from across the province.
The RVC contingent includes six players on the Zone 2 (Big Country) girls' team, in addition to colleagues from Airdrie, Cochrane, and Crossfield.
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.
The Rocky View representatives include Aleena Rafih and Sophie Daley; Gabriela Navaz, Esme Sinke, and Allie Pazarka of Springbank; and Emma Baker of Bearspaw. Crossfield's Zoe Buettner is also on the team.
Charlie Lord is the lone Cochranite on the team, while Maddy Hargreaves, Megan Jorquera, and Kaviya Ramlu represent Airdrie. On top of that, three of the team's alternates are from Airdrie, including Kiarra Sikorski, Presley Fowler, and Chloe Yeo.
Zone 2 head coach Karen Tereposky, a Springbank resident, 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.
“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 relatively short 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.
