BATON ROUGE — A total of 13 members of the LSU soccer program competed with their respective club teams in the recent U.S. Youth Soccer Southern Regional Championships held at the Burns Park Soccer Complex in North Little Rock, Ark., from June 29-July 5.
Four returning sophomores and nine incoming freshmen representing 10 club teams from across the South competed in both the Under-18 and Under-19 divisions during the week-long event, which is part of the USYS National Championship Series.
“This tournament is a representation of the future success of the LSU soccer program on a national level,” said LSU assistant coach Daniel Brizard. “It just shows the caliber of athlete that LSU soccer is able to attract. The girls played well throughout the competition and represented this university and their respective club teams in the way we expect.”
Freshman Michelle Makasini led the Dallas Texans 88 Red North to the U-18 USYS Southern Regional Championship with a 3-0 shutout of the Peachtree City Lazers of Georgia in the tournament finals on Wednesday. With the win, the Texans advance to the USYS National Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, beginning July 24.
“We won the regional championship because we played together as a team throughout the whole competition,” Makasini said. “We played with a lot of heart and showed what kind of character we have by coming from behind late in regulation to win our semifinal match and going on to win in the finals.”
Makasini’s team trailed by the score of 2-0 with 12 minutes to play in its semifinal match against freshman Brittany Lowe and the Challenge Soccer Club of South Texas before coming back to tie the score in regulation and score four goals in overtime en route to a 6-2 victory.
Makasini helped send the match into overtime with an assist on the game-tying goal off a free kick in the final minutes of regulation.
“Our ultimate goal is to win a national championship, and that’s what our coach (Hassan Nazari) said we would work for when we first came together on July 1,” Makasini said. “We’ve worked so hard to get where we are, and we didn’t want it to end with a loss like that in the semifinals. We want a lot more than just a regional championship.”
The Lazers were led throughout the tournament by the stellar play of sophomore Melissa Clarke and freshman Malorie Rutledge. Clarke finished the competition with five goals, including both goals in regulation in her team’s semifinal victory over the Countryside Lightning of Florida.
“We played hard the whole tournament against some great competition but just fell a little short in the end,” Clarke said. “It’s tough because we played so well, and our match in the finals could have gone either way. That’s just the way it goes sometimes. I’m still proud of how far we advanced.”
Seven of the eight teams advancing to the quarterfinals in the U-18 division featured a current or future Tiger. Makasini’s team shutout the Dallas Texans club led by freshman Rachel Hartman by the score of 4-0, while Clarke and Rutledge guided the Lazers to a 1-0 shutout of freshman Kathleen Walsh and Vestavia Attack 88 Blue of Alabama.
Lowe and the Challenge Soccer Club edged freshman Amanda Carreno and the Tulsa Soccer Club of Oklahoma by the score of 2-0, and freshman Kennedy Richards and the Baton Rouge Soccer Club fell to Countryside Lightning.
Freshman Nikki Bush and the Mississippi United Soccer Club and freshman Rachel Yepez and the Charlotte Soccer Club of North Carolina failed to advance from group play to open the competition, finishing with a record of 1-2-0 and 0-2-1, respectively.
A trio of sophomores led the Baton Rouge Soccer Club to the semifinals of the U-19 division before falling to CASL Sparta Elite of North Carolina, including Casey Crawford, Leeza Iver and Roslyn Jones.
The USYS is the largest youth sports organization in the country and features more than 7,200 teams and 129,600 players competing in 55 USYS State Associations. The USYS National Championships will be held for boys and girls from the U-14 through U-19 divisions at the James W. Cownie Soccer Park in Des Moines from July 24-30.