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By Callum Fraser & Daniel Prinn
They were history-makers ever since their first year competing at the provincial level, becoming the first team from Eastern Ontario to ever win an Ontario Youth Soccer League east division crown.
And now as the Ottawa South United Force 1998-born girls graduate from youth soccer, they have quite possibly set another unprecedented standard for the number of players from one team to move on to play at the post-secondary level – the total surpassing a dozen in March.
“Our goal is to make sure we progress players to the next level, whether that’s Canadian or American universities,” says Dom Oliveri, who’s worked with the ’98 girls in OSU’s new college prep program since the fall. “The players have done a great job getting themselves into these positions and getting themselves these opportunities.”
Many of the college/university-bound Force are headed off together to the same destinations. A trio are headed to the University of Maine, another three to Algonquin College, and a pair to the University of New Brunswick.
“I’m really excited to go with them. They’re a great group of girls,” notes Maine-bound Priscilla Domingo, who will have Nicole Bailey and Kaitlyn Ball at her side as Black Bears. “We’ve been on the same team for about five years, so it’s good that I have them to go through the journey with me.”
Andrianna Dmuchalsky, Georgia Iliopoulos and Hailey Martin will stay in town to play together for the Algonquin Thunder.
“I’m so happy that they’re coming with me,” highlights Iliopoulos, who will study nursing. “It’s really good that they’re there, it just makes me feel more comfortable. The team is really nice, too, so I feel pretty welcome.”
Oliveri also serves as the head coach for the Thunder women, and says he would have been interested in the OSU trio regardless of which club they played for.
“There were three players we really liked and we wanted to get into our program and it just happened they played for the same team,” highlights the former champion coach of the now-defunct Ottawa Fury W-League squad. “They are fantastic players and we’re happy to have them.”
Although several players wound up at the same schools, that remains somewhat coincidental, they say, since each chose the place they thought was the best match for them.
That was the case for UNB-bound Clarisse Ramirez and Erin Foley. Ramirez was impressed by the university’s soccer program and academic opportunities to study psychology.
Foley is the daughter of two UNB grads, including the men’s program’s all-time leading scorer, Dave Foley. The Varsity Reds coach had been after her since was in Grade 10. The quick-thinking 5-foot-3 winger was invited to training camp and loved the campus when she visited.
“I got to meet the girls and it was really fun,” Foley recounts. “I loved the team dynamics and I loved the coach’s style of coaching. I knew right away that it was the school for me.”
One of OSU’s 1999-born players, Gillian Campbell, will be graduating high school a year early to play with one of the Varsity Reds’ rivals, the Mount Allison Mounties.
Julia Rosenthal will stay in town and play for the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees, while fellow Force ’98 teammate Taylor Beltz (University of Minnesota) and past OSU player Kath Herron (Southern Methodist University) will head south of the border.
Another pair of players on the groundbreaking OYSL east champion team were Anna Munro (currently with Duke University) and Canadian under-20 women’s national team player Alexis Martel-Lamothe, who’s headed to Notre-Dame University.
The current Force college prep program participants have been training together throughout the winter to get ready for the next stage of their careers, and have played matches against uOttawa, Carleton and Algonquin.
The ’99 Force girls also got a taste of the college level on their recent tour to Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
“It’s much more physical,” Domingo says of the matches she’s played against older opponents. “I wouldn’t say more skilled, I think we’re all at around the same level of skill, they know how to play a physical game and we’re just not used to it yet, I guess.”
The players – most of whom have played together for at least five years, and many much longer – are making sure to enjoy these final opportunities together as a team. There remains a somewhat bittersweet feeling to the successful horizons ahead, because although some of them are staying together, many will be headed their separate ways.
“It’s going to be hard moving on,” Iliopoulos underlines. “We’re kind of like a family. We’ve been with each other for so long and I’ve grown up with these girls. They’re some of my best friends.”