Team Chicago Academy-Santos striker Sara Stevens has accepted a great scholarship offer to continue her career at NCAA Division II powerhouse Grand Valley State University in Allendale, MI. Sara, who plays her prep soccer for Plainfield North H.S., will be part of Grand Valley Head Coach Dave DiIanni’s 2014 recruiting class.

Grand Valley is currently the top-ranked NCAA Division II team and has won 2 National Championships over the past 4 years. At Grand Valley Sara will be joining fellow Team Chicago Academy player Tracey McCoy.

Both Team Chicago Academy-Brasilia and Team Chicago Academy-Internacional were off to perfect starts in the U15 MRL Premier Division and U17 MRL First Division this past weekend.

Brasilia’s opening game in Muscatine, IA was against Omaha FC Elite – three time State Champions from Nebraska – and Brasilia came away with a 4-3 victory. Early on in the match MaKenna Schoolman was played in 1v1 with the GK and just nearly scored. However, instead Brasilia fell behind midway through the first half against the run of play.

The balance of the goals were all scored in the second half. The first came as Maggie Roe played a nice ball to put Safia Hannin in behind the defense, and she calmly beat the keeper to tie it up. Both goals scored in the second half by Omaha FC were off of restarts. Brasilia second goal came off of a combination that started with Jade Eriksen-Russo who played the ball into Abby Severson who found Jasmine Ruiz 30 yards away from goal. Jasmine’s goal was the result of great field awareness and seeing the keeper off her line and she placed it perfectly.

The third goal came from a nice ball served over the top from Jasmine that found Maggie Roe in on goal who fought off pressure to place the ball in the corner. The game winner goal came off a great ball played over the top by Lupe Anguiano that found Abby Severson. Abby found Maggie Roe in the box and she made a nice turn to place the ball past the keeper.

Sunday morning’s game was against Kansas Rush. This game was a defensive battle and ended with a 1-0 victory for Team Chicago. The only goal came from a heads-up play from Safia Hannin who went after a ball that looked as if it were going out, and she got a hold of it and served a great ball across the six. Maggie Roe ran onto the ball and smashed it home for the game winner.

The biggest play came in the second half when the referee awarded Rush a penalty kick. The Kansas Rush player stepped up and hit a well-placed shot that looked like it was going in only to be denied by a fantastic save by Madison Lockard. The back four were resilient and should be recognized for their tireless work throughout the game. Congrats to Nicole Mondi, Emmerson Fuller, Jade Eriksen-Russo and Rachel Erdman.

Brasilia will now travel to Overland Park, Kansas for the next round of MRL Premier Division games.

Internacional traveled to East Lansing, MI to take on TNT and MI Gators. Both games ended with 3-1 wins for Internacional.

On Saturday night, Sam O’Brien opened the scoring from a great Miranda Lambert run and cross on-top of the six-yard box. Against the run of play TNT struck back to make it 1-1 before halftime.

However, Internacional responded really well in the 2nd half and Sam O’Brien got the eventual game-winner from a great win and pass in the midfield by Cailin LaRoque 10 minutes into the half. The insurance goal came with 5 minutes left when Jordan Wilde won a ball in the air and found the side-netting of the far post with a perfect finish.

On Sunday morning Internacional created several 100% chances in the opening 10 minutes, but the only goal came from Sam O’Brien’s individual effort beating a defender 1v1 and walking it in. The rest of the half was more of the same – total Internacional dominance in terms of chances but they all went begging.

10 minutes into the 2nd half Miranda Lambert got the game-winner when she took a great Alena Sidwell pass, and calmly walked the ball in across the chasing defenders and slotted it home at the far post. MI Gators struck back off a free-kick with 20 minutes left, but Alena Sidwell finished them off with 3 minutes left in the game with another perfect far post finish from the top of the six-yard box off Sam O’Brien’s cross.

Next up for Internacional is a must-win State Cup game at FCX in South Barrington at 11:30am this Saturday.

It was a battle of Team Chicago Academy players when the Metea Valley H.S. freshmen just played the Neuqua Valley H.S. freshman.

It was a great game that Neuqua won 2-1. Team Chicago Academy U15 Head Coach Mike Schmitt enjoyed watching his coaching efforts pay off with the strong performances by the following boys.

From left to right: Steven Kizorek, Connor Ahler, Dominic Duffy, Michael Vivo, Adam Bose, Spencer Wiese, Alex Simonich, Antonio Magno, George Fitsalos, Emerson Beinhauer, Wesley Anderson, Alex Filo, Aayush Kaul, and Calum Nettleton.

Dominic Duffy, Max Graf, Wesley Anderson and Emerson Beinhauer all began their travel soccer career together as original members of the Eagles. They came to the club as U7 players in 2005, first coached by Liz D’Addario. Thy went on to be coached by Bill Harris for three years, Brian Bierman for one and have been led by Mike Schmitt for the last three years.

This fall, Wesley Anderson and Dominic Duffy are starters for the Metea Valley freshman team. Max Graf is starting for JV1 at Metea, and Emerson Beinhauer is a starter for the Neuqua Valley freshman team. After the high school season is complete, these four boys will come back to Team Chicago Academy and Coach Mike for their ninth year together with the U15 Eagles.

Team Chicago Academy-Santos winger Olivia Schmitt is currently participating in the Asian Football Federation Championships in Myanmar with the Philippine Women’s National Team.

Olivia’s mom Vida is from the Philippines, and last year Olivia started pursuing her dream of representing her mom’s native country at the international level. She went to extensive training/tryout camps in California before finally getting picked to be on the Philippine roster at the AFF Championships.

Olivia left for another training camp in Manila on August 24th, and after 2 weeks of training the Malditas arrived in Myanmar for the Championships. Thus far they have played two games and Olivia has started in both. They opened with a 6-0 victory over Indonesia, and then early this morning Chicago time they lost 4-1 to the Japanese U23 National Team. A pretty impressive showing for a team that consists mainly of U.S.-based high school-aged players like Olivia.

Next up for the Olivia and her team is a match against the hosts Myanmar on Saturday. With a win they should secure a spot in the semi-finals against either Thailand or the Australian U19 team.

The picture with this story is of Olivia on the official game poster for the Japan game.

Good luck Liv! You are making us proud all the way on the other side of the world :-)