U11s Make FLUGSA Finals With Exciting Win Over Team Boca

The girls later fall to Weston in tile game

Plantation, Florida (February 24, 2007) - The u11 (95/96) Sunrise Sting continued to surprise by defeating Team Boca in an exciting semi-final match to advance to the FLUGSA championship game. The girls lost to Weston in the title game, but the accomplishment of making it all the way to the finals was a great reward for a group of girls that really exceeded expectations and had to deal with some unusual bad luck during the course of the season.

The team had been hampered by serious injuries all year, and at one point, was down to only five age appropriate players. But everyone had gotten healthy by January and the u11s were on a roll and had just returned from the Gator Showcase where the team went 3-1 losing only in the championship game. Everything was looking good at the final practice just 48 hours before the playoffs when star goalie Alexis Gifford broke her thumb, making her unavailable for the playoffs.

Up stepped Jaylie Jensen to take on the challenge of being the featured keeper against Team Boca. Sunrise had finished in third place in the regular season, just behind second place Team Boca. In the semi-final match, Boca took a 1-0 lead midway through the first half. Dani Westerlind tied the game on a medium distance strike from the left side of the field just before half. Team Boca came out and dominated the first 15-minutes of the second half. But at about that time, Sunrise got a corner kick. Hannah-Jo Isaacson sent the ball into the six where Julie Konners flicked it into the net to give Sunrise a 2-1 lead. The goal sparked the Sting, and Zoe Estevez broke the game open with five minutes remaining when she took the ball straight up the middle from the half line into the box and scored with a shot inside the right post for the 3-1 win. Jensen made many good saves to help with the victory.

Things were much tougher against undefeated Weston in the championship game. Weston played an excellent game and defeated the Sting 4-0. The high point in terms of Sunrise play was the incredible goalkeeping of Jensen, who really kept the score somewhat reasonable. Despite the loss, the u11 Sting were thrilled with their performance this year and look to build on this year's performance to become even better next year.