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Thursday, June 19, 2008

Soccer Team Is on the Move

By Glen Rosales
For the Telegraph
      ALBUQUERQUE — Like the train from which its name is derived, the Lokomotiv girls soccer team has been chugging uphill at a steady pace.
    Stuffed full of players from Cedar Crest, Edgewood and Tijeras, Lokomotiv has progressed from playing locally, to taking on the challenges of American Youth Soccer Organization, then moving into the competitive Duke City Soccer League, and moving up the ladder in the latter organization while affiliating with the All Girls Soccer Club.
    Now Lokomotiv, which is advancing to the under-13 age group that plays with 11 players on the field each, is looking to advance from its Challenge I bracket into the top rung of Duke City, Premier. That optimism is based on a successful tournament run in May. The team went to Durango, Colo., for its experience with 11-aside, earning a silver medal. The team returned to Albuquerque to play in the highly competitive Sandia Cup over Memorial Day weekend, again taking home a silver.
    “We have nine kids who have played together two and a half years now,” said coach Stan McCoy of Cedar Crest. His daughter, Madison McCoy, is one of the team's players. “We started in the East Mountain Soccer League and moved up from there. I had some experience with what it takes to play at a competitive level because I had an older daughter go through the process. So I had an idea of what to do this time around.”
    The progression has been designed to keep the team competitive at each level while building a core of players who stick together. And it's working according to plan, McCoy said.
    “We realized the importance of keeping the kids together,” he said. “They can see it when they play a team that has been together longer.”
    But the players are happy with what they've done already.
    “I'm really proud of how far we've come,” said Edgewood resident Jessie Green. “We made it all the way into Challenge I, now we want to keep going and make it into Premier.” Lokomotiv got a taste of that type of play in the Sandia Cup when it took on a team from that level, the Rio Vista Ice. Although the Ice won both meetings, including the championship, Lokomotiv put up a good fight in the finale, losing 5-2 and scoring the only goals the Ice gave up all tournament.
    “We're going to have to practice a lot harder and get physically stronger so we can play harder,” Green said.
    Toward that end, McCoy handed out some suggested workouts for the summer.
    “We really want to get better,” said Tijeras resident Jessica Schneider. “He wants us to keep a ball at our feet for 45 minutes and that's really fun because we can do it while we're watching T.V., sitting on the couch.”
    Then there's little things like juggling for 15 minutes every day and getting out and running, bicycling or jumping rope several times a week.
    “It's not that grueling a schedule or anything like that,” Schneider said. “It's not something we have to do. It's just suggestions. But we all want to get better.”
    The team also will attend some camps through the club as it prepares for bigger fields and more players on the pitch.
    “It's really fun and everybody is really supportive of each other,” Schneider said. Other local athletes on the team include Claire Eberle, Eliza Ennis and Rachael Ringler of Cedar Crest, Paige Gibbard of Edgewood and Kaili Manzanares of Tijeras.
   

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