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Tuesday, October 7, 2008 |
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Surrey stars on national radar screen |
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Written by JASON PETERS
Citizen staff
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Monday, 07 July 2008 |
Melissa Horahan of the Surrey Breakers, right, battles for ball control against Jessica Verlinden of the Abbotsford Mariners during Sunday’s Under-17 provincial gold medal game at Rotary Fields. Horahan has already secured a U.S. college scholarship. (Citizen photo by David Mah)
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SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
Sarah Pennington and Melissa Horahan are members of the Surrey Breakers team that kicked to silver in the girls Under-17 division of the provincial ‘A’ championships, which wrapped up Sunday in Prince George. And both Pennington and Horahan have already been identified as having the potential to play for their country.
For the past year, the two rising stars have been honing their already-impressive skills in a National Training Centre program, based at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby.
“We train twice a week up at SFU, usually for two hours,” said Pennington, a central defender for the Breakers, who lost 2-1 to the Abbotsford Mariners in Sunday’s provincial championship game. “We go through drills and train with each other and then every month-and-a-half or two months we have a scouting visit where the national coaches come and visit. It’s usually a three-day thing where we miss school -- Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. We play intersquad games and sometimes the coach will run a training session with us. On the third day, we usually play the (Vancouver) Whitecaps reserve team. It changes up, which group it is. Sometimes it’s their actual one and other times their travel program with U-20 girls.”
Pennington, a 16-year-old who attends Earl Marriott secondary school in Surrey, normally plays a huge role in the success of the Breakers.
“She’s great in the air, a great communicator and very steady defensively,” Breakers head coach Patrick Horahan said of the long and lean Pennington. “She jumps up into the play well. She’s also a great free-kick player -- kicks all our corner kicks and sets up a lot of goals with excellent service on corner kicks.”
Pennington said she really started to develop her game while playing for Team B.C. last year.
“Up until then I was good but I needed a lot of training in my position,” she said. “And then I came on this team and I got put in a different position and it made me learn offence.”
Melissa Horahan is also 16 and she’s one of the top strikers in the province. She’s such a prolific goal-scorer that she has landed a full-ride scholarship at the University of Oregon -- even though she still has two years to go at Fraser Valley Christian high school.
“I’m the first (recruit) for 2010,” she said with a grin.
Melissa Horahan, daughter of the Surrey coach, wasn’t always the goal factory she is now. Her story is one that disproves the notion of ‘father knows best.’
“I used to play inside midfield and I used to be the one who always assisted everyone, and I always wanted to be the one who scored,” she said. “So I always bugged my dad and said that I wanted to be striker. But I was really small and so he never let me. And then I got taller and we lost some key strikers so he put me up there and I started scoring.”
These days, dad/coach is happy he finally listened to his daughter’s pleas to be a shooter instead of a passer.
“She’s basically our No. 1 goalscorer,” Patrick Horahan said. “She’s a great finisher -- just knows how to create and score goals. That’s her job and she’s very good at it.”
See The Citizen’s website (www.princegeorgecitizen.com) for a slideshow from the B.C. Soccer Association ‘A’ Cup provincial championships.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 07 September 2008 )
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