News for the Week of July 23, 2012

Program Notes for the Week of 7/23/2012:

Strongsville Showcase Wrap-up:
Another hot weekend of soccer in Strongsville!  Our Varsity team did well against a difficult schedule and went 1-2-2 on the weekend and were competitive in every game. Still a lot of things to work on, but the girls got off to a good start.  The JV team went 3-1-1 and the Freshman team was strong also.   The girls have this week off and then it is back to conditioning on the week of the 30th and then the following week it will be tryouts with the start of the season not far behind.


Continental Cup:
We had 3 girls from our Shoregals play in the Continental Cup a few weeks back.  Clare Adams, Sarah Nasr, and Rada Zunich played as a part of the Cleveland United U15 team.  Their team played an age group up and went on to win the U16 age bracket by beating four teams from Canada and one from Puerto Rico.  In the semi-final game, which went to penalty kicks, Sarah Nasr scored the tying penalty kick to help her team to victory.  United then went on to win the finals game by a score of 2-0 over St. Catherines, Ontario. For the weekend, the United team gave up only 1 goal in 6 games. 


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. Each week, we are going to highlight some of the important games and important people to the program over these last 20 years.

This week we will feature Megan (Ryan) Lamb:

Meg Ryan was one of the greatest athletes to ever wear a Shoregals uniform.  She was a 3 sport player who earned 12 letters in her HS days. In soccer, Meg was a 4 year Varsity player whose career spanned the years from 1996-1999.  She is the Shoregal career leader in goals scored (59), assists (49), and points (167).  She also holds the record for most assists in a season with 19 and most points with 69.  Consider her stats from her sophomore season of 1997 - 25 goals and 19 assists for a total of 69 points - Wow! Of course, she picked up many honors along the way including All Greater Cleveland 1st team- soph. junior, & senior years. All Lorain County 1st team - soph. junior & senior years.  Team MVP - soph, junior, & senior years and All-Ohio 3rd team her senior year.

As good as a soccer player that she was, she may have been even a better basketball player.  She was a four year Varsity player with the Shoregals who scored over 1,000 points in her career and was on two conference championship teams.  She racked up many honors in basketball also including SWC 1st team - soph, junior, & senior years.  All Lorain County 1st team - soph. junior & senior years.  Team MVP - soph, junior, & senior years.  Topping it off with Honorable Mention All-Ohio - soph. junior, & senior years. 

In the Spring, she also ran Varsity track for all 4 years.   Her Senior year, she was named as the ALHS Outstanding Female Athlete and it is pretty easy to understand why.  She set a high standard for future Shoregals to try and match.

Shorty Sez:

"Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard".

This phrase has been quoted by many people including most recently Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder & the USA Olympic team.  Herb Brooks, coach of the "Miracle on Ice" 1980 US Olympic hockey team has used this quote.  Tim Tebow has also used this quote.  It is a good one and kind of fits our team this year.