News for the Week of April 30, 2012

Program Notes for the Week of 4/30/2012:

Shoregals in the News:
Karen Krause was voted Captain of the ALHS dance team for the 2012-2013 season based on her tryout score and leadership shown the last two years.

Also, Karen was selected as a student/athlete representative by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation of Cleveland to meet with a member of Congress this summer to explain the challenges Type 1 Diabetics face daily to monitor their changing blood sugar and how that affects their daily lives as students and athletes in an effort to increase funding to the research foundation.  Congrats to Karen on these noteworthy accomplishments!

Sarah Nasr and Clare Adams play on the Cleveland United U15 Midwest Regional League (MRL) girls team which placed 2nd out of 40 teams (some nationally ranked) in this past weekend's Crossroads College Showcase in Carmel, Indiana. This is one of the top ranked college showcases in the United States.

The team scored 8 goals and gave up zero all weekend. Sarah was the starting central fullback for each of the victories and Clare played at the midfield position.

The team is currently undefeated in their MRL division and have conceeded zero goals thus far. Should they hold on to the first place position in the next few weeks, they will be promoted to the Premier division next Spring.  Great to hear that they are doing so well!


 
20th Anniversary of Shoregal Soccer:
This season we will celebrate 20 years of Shoregal soccer. That is a long time and we have had a lot of terrific girls pass through our program over the years who have set the bar high for future generations.  We have won over 60% of the games we have played in the last 20 years and our girls have compiled an impressive amount of academic awards as well.  We have had valedictorians, salutatorians, and many girls in the top ten of their class along with our three Adidas Team Academic All-American Awards. 

So, we hope that our parents understand and the girls come to realize that it is an honor to be involved with the Shoregal soccer program.  The girls' accomplishments have been underpublicized over the years, but that does not diminish the fact that it is a big deal to be on the ALHS soccer team.  We may not have won a lot of championships - one District title and one SWC title, but a number of the girls have gone on to become successful collegiate players and many, many more have gone on to achieve great academic success in college.

Our former Shoregal players are now successful in their careers and have become solid citizens and quality people and over the long run that is more important than a case full of trophies.  Our current group of girls continue that tradition with an impressive array of extracurricular activities and outstanding classroom performance. 

In coming blogs, we are going to highlight some of the important games and important people to the program over the last 20 years.


Shoregals in College:
Recently, Jillian & Dana Strimbu signed to continue their collegiate careers at Otterbein University in Westerville Ohio which is a suburb of Columbus.  The Otterbein women's team is a powerhouse in Division III soccer as they have won the OAC conference championship 6 times in the past 10 years and have also made six trips to the NCAA postseason tournament in the last 10 years.  In 2010, they advanced to the NCAA Final Four.
 
Jillian finished her high school career at ALHS ranked in the top 10 all-time in goals, assists, and points scored and was named second team All-Ohio this past season.
 
Dana recorded 14 shutouts during her career which is 5th all-time at ALHS and was named SWC Goalie of the Year this past season. Best of Luck to Jillian & Dana in their collegiate careers!
 
Shorty Sez:
We continue to feature the teamwork philosophies from Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski who is a pre-eminent expert on leadership and teambuilding. This week's idea to reflect upon is as follows:

"Never set a goal that involves number of wins - never.  Set goals that revolve around playing together as a team.  Doing so will put you in a position to win every game."

-- Coach K