By Ottawa Sports Pages, for OSU Force Academy
With the Northern Super League set to land in the nation’s capital next year, Ottawa’s new professional women’s soccer team won’t have to look far for prospects.
Ottawa South United Soccer Club again showed that it’s got many players on the path to the sport’s highest levels when it co-led the province’s clubs with 21 selections to Team Ontario this season.
Abigail White was one of those players who got a taste of a professional-style environment when she competed for the Ontario under-15 girls’ team in a recent three-game series against Team Quebec in Toronto.
“It was an amazing experience,” recounts White, a left attacking midfielder. “Having the game broadcast was super fun. Seeing myself on-screen was amazing, I felt like I was a professional soccer player.”
There wasn’t a big-dollar victory bonus just yet, but White nonetheless savoured the chance to play in the provincial series on the Victoria Day weekend.
With a pair of 3-1 victories and a scoreless draw, White’s U15 side made the difference as Ontario edged Quebec with a 6-4-2 record across 12 matches, contested between the provincial neighbours’ U15 and U17 girls’ and boys’ teams.
“It was very competitive, and I loved it,” highlights White, who enjoyed having U15 OSU Force OPDL teammate Willow Baldree with her on Team Ontario, which provided a nice connection within the team made up largely of players from the Toronto area, and allowed them to utilize combinations they’d developed through practices and games together.
“We brought our little Ottawa spark with us, and we made lots of friends too,” notes White. “I’m looking forward to seeing some of those players throughout the (club) season. It was very fun.”
The series also provided the opportunity to be seen by talent scouts, including National Development Centre Ontario Director Joey Lombardi.
“That was pretty cool,” indicates White. “He was telling us that we’re only one or two steps away from being looked at by the development centre, so that was exciting to think about, and every practice, you wanted to go hard to impress the coach and to showcase yourself for those opportunities.”
Canada Soccer’s Women’s National Youth EXCEL program has recruited numerous OSU players to the NDC in recent years, while Clarissa Larisey has become a regular with the Canadian senior women’s team, Annabelle Chukwu has appeared for the senior side on occasion while starring for youth national teams, and many more OSU products are set to play NCAA and U Sports soccer next season.
“It gets me excited to see that other people get these opportunities and have actually gone further in their soccer playing career,” signals White, a Grade 9 Sacred Heart Catholic High School student who may like to pursue a move to the NDC in the coming years, with her long-term sights set on studying in a health-related field at university while playing varsity soccer.
“If I can do that in the future, that’d be pretty special,” she adds.
First, there is business to take care of back home, where her U15 Force team has something to prove this season.
Last year, the squad produced a strong 14-5-1 record while outscoring its opponents by 56 goals over 20 games, but still missed the playoffs by a small margin due to a logjam at the top of the table.
“We want to compete and we want to win,” White underlines. “Because we didn’t get that opportunity last year, we’re hungrier than ever.”
Following a Desert Super Cup international tournament victory in Arizona during the winter, the Force have opened their 2024 Ontario Player Development League season with three shutout victories and a pair of one-goal losses. Team training also offers a high-tempo environment.
“I enjoy the competition, a lot. Every practice, our practices get very intense,” explains White, who was welcomed with open arms by “amazing” teammates when she joined OSU for her U13 OPDL season.
“In the moment, it gets really heated, but at the end of the day, we know we’re best friends,” she continues. “These are the girls that I see like every single day. After a rough day at school, a bad mark on a test or something, I can come to soccer and here are my best friends.
“We have a very fun time at practice, we all enjoy the competitiveness and the intensity, and then we bring that into the games on the weekends and throughout the whole season.”
It’s been a strong start to the OPDL season for OSU overall, with half of the club’s teams maintaining perfect records through the first five weeks of play.
The full list of OSU players who were part of Team Ontario for pre-/early-season competition opportunities included: Zoe McLauchlan, Bianca Hanisch & Charlotte Murray-Martin (U17 girls), Ralph Khoury (U17 boys), Cindy Yang, Felicia Hanisch, Mia Ugarte, Naomi Lofthouse & Jaida Tucker (U16G), Reinaldo Abraham & Austin Wood (U16B), Abigail White & Willow Baldree (U15G), Kira Prégent, Arya Wynter, Audrey Costa & Zeina Zibara (U14G) and Karim Sadek, Levi Mukendi, Luka Todorovic & Ante Vranjkovic (U14B).
“It’s good, but we kind of expect that level of representation at this point,” says Force High-Performance Technical Lead David Fox, noting that OSU has consistently been among the province’s top-performing clubs for many years now, including an OPDL title by its current U15 boys’ squad last season. “But we had the joint most in the province this year, so it’s obviously a positive for the club.”
Learn more about Ottawa South United Soccer Club at osu.ca.
