Features/In the News

Just as loss can echo throughout a community, so too can hope. On Aug. 23, hope will sound like cleats on grass, the breathing of athletes exerting themselves, the smack of laces on leather, and the enthusiastic cheers of victory. These sounds will be heard from sunrise to sunset during the Graeme Preston Memorial Soccer Marathon and reverberate long after in the hearts of participants.

Freehold Township resident Mia O'Brien, 15, who is a Girl Scout working toward her Silver award, is organizing the event. All donations will benefit the Graeme Preston Foundation for Life, a charity started by Graeme's family after the youngster's death this past spring.

Julie Foudy eats M&M’s. Sometimes, as it turns out, while talking about how to stay fit. But sweet tooth aside, the former soccer superstar remains a ferocious advocate for health and fitness, even as motherhood, media and other missions have replaced competition as the driving forces in her life.

“My life has changed quite a bit from having two massage therapists traveling with us all the time,” says Foudy, who led the U.S. women’s soccer team to two Olympic golds and a couple of FIFA World Championships during a 17-year career that last year landed her in the National Soccer Hall of Fame. “But while I no longer have half a day to spend on my body, fitness is still incredibly important to me.”

The Freedom continued their winning ways this weekend with a solid 3-0 shutout over the Jersey Sky Blue at the Maryland Soccer Plex in Germantown MD. Despite the shutout score, this game was anything but close, and the Sky Blue pressured for all 90 minutes of regulation. Thanks to a stifling defense and a stoic performance by keeper Chante Sandiford, the Freedom walked off the pitch with a confident 3-0 win, having been tested in the backfield.

The Sky Blue took the opening possessions and drove into Freedom territory, forcing Lori Lindsey and Sarah Huffman to clear on several occasions. The Freedom responded in kind with attacks on their own, including a shot by Jenn Parsens in the seventh minute. Sky Blue keeper Jillian Loyden was called on to make a diving save to keep the score knotted at zero.

Tricia DiPaolo remembers when the same right leg that she used to run hundreds of miles and kick thousands of soccer balls wouldn't budge an inch for her. It acted as if it belonged to someone else.

"They sat me on a table," DiPaolo said. "The trainer said, 'try to lift your leg.' I was staring at my leg and I couldn't move it. I was trying so hard to do it. That was really bizarre but you don't have a quadricep muscle right after (surgery)."

Thankfully, DiPaolo is moving her legs and kicking soccer balls again. The former Lenape Valley standout is ready to resume her collegiate playing career at Rutgers University after recovering from a torn anterior cruciate ligament. This summer she can be seen playing for Jersey Sky Blue the W-League team which plays its home games at Drew University in Madison.

Anna Johnson's goal in the 31st minute lifted the Connecticut Passion past Jersey Sky Blue 1-0 in a rain-delayed W-League contest at Drew University's Ranger Stadium on Saturday.

Goalkeeper Nikki Weiss preserved the shutout on three saves for Connecticut in a game that was delayed 30 minutes at the start because of lightning and was played in a steady rain practically all the way through.
The loss drops Jersey Sky Blue to 6-3-1 and will probably knock them out of a second place tie with the Long Island Rough Riders in the Eastern Conference of the W-League. The Connecticut Passion improved to 5-2-2 and avenged a 3-1 loss to Jersey Sky Blue on May 17.

When you've gone from Uppsala, a Swedish city a short train ride away from Stockholm, to Stillwater, an Oklahoma outpost a long train ride from anywhere, the globe shrinks.
In fact, it starts to look remarkably like a soccer ball.

Many of the WUSA's best moments and lasting legacies came courtesy of those with international passports. From players like Kelly Smith and Maren Meinert to coaches like current United States national team boss Pia Sundhage, the league's international pull helped make it the center of the women's soccer word. And when Sky Blue Soccer recently announced that former Brazilian star and WUSA veteran Sissi was coming on board as a talent scout for the Americas, the move offered evidence as to the expected reach of Women's Professional Soccer when the league kicks off play in 2009.

Not that the WPS New Jersey/New York entry must travel too many miles to begin its international outreach.

The New Jersey Wildcats couldn't catch a break in their homecoming against Jersey Sky Blue Tuesday night.

Missed opportunities and scoring chances cost the Wildcats in a 1-0 loss in the W-League women's soccer matchup.

The game was a back-and-forth battle as each team had trouble putting the right touch on the ball and with unlucky calls. The lone goal came off a cross from Sarra Moller that Tricia DiPaolo headed in during the 56th minute.

The midfield on the Jersey Sky Blue team ran about the soccer field attached by a thin rope at their waists.

When one woman moved forward or another backward the string pulled them an even length away from a teammate. They were trying to get an idea of positioning on the field. It was a way of figuring out where they were in juxtaposition to their teammates.

It was another way of getting to know each other on the field.

The Jersey Sky Blue players don't know each other that well yet as they get used to their new surroundings. But by the middle of summer they should all be better players and teammates. The team is in their second year as a W-League squad and their first season of playing home games at Drew University.

When River Vale native Domenique Esposito was 8 years old, she was faced with a life-altering decision: to plié, or not to plié?

The aspiring ballerina had discovered a new love on the local “kiddie kick-around” field, and found herself torn.

“I was a dancer as well,” Esposito remembers. “Soccer was up-and-coming and it wasn’t really popular for girls… Then soccer started getting really competitive,” she adds, a wry smile audible in her voice.