News for the Week of November 25, 2013

Program notes for the Week of 11/25/2013:

Happy Thanksgiving to all our soccer families!!


Team Academic All-America Award 2013:
There was an academic award announced last week after the awards assembly had taken place that we want everyone to be aware of:

We are very excited to announce that the girls were awarded Team Academic All-America status for the 2012-2013 school year this past week by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA). This is the highest academic honor that high school soccer teams may receive in the country. Avon Lake was one of only 224 teams nationwide (about 4 per state) to receive this prestigious award and the team GPA was an excellent 3.44!

Also, Avon Lake was the only Lorain County school to be awarded Team Academic All-America status.

To qualify for the award, a team must have a minimum grade point average of 3.25 for the entire academic year. The way that this award is figured is based on the fact that a number of states play Spring soccer only and in order to include all states the NSCAA waits until after the Spring season is completed to determine the award winners. That is why the award for last year is just being announced in late November of this year. This was actually last year's team that won the award and would include last year's 7 graduated seniors.  This year's team is also on track to receive Academic All-America status again for the current academic year next November. That would mark the 5th year in row that the Shoregals have received this award as we have now earned it in 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, & 2008.

Congratulations to all our Shoregal scholars!!  It is a pleasure to be able to report not only successes on the field but also in the classroom as well.  The girls soccer program has a legacy of achievement that continues with each new generation of players and is truly something to be admired.


Shoregal Alumni in College Update:
The college season has concluded for our Shoregal alumni and let's give an update on how their seasons went:

At Otterbein University, sophomore Dana Strimbu played goalie in all 20 games with 19 starts and was the primary goalie. She had a record of 10-6-1 with 5 shutouts and 55 saves. She allowed only 15 goals the entire season.

Her sister and fellow sophomore Jillian Strimbu started all 20 games.  She was the team's leading scorer with 10 goals including 5 game winners and contributed 2 assists. Otterbein finished the season with a record of 12-7-1.

At Cleveland State, senior Taylor Miller played in 11 games and had 1 assist  for the 8-9-1 Vikings.

At Butler University, sophomore Rachel Gates plays for their club soccer team for which she is a vice-president.   Their record was 2-7-1 and was difficult to find any stats.

It sounds like our Alumni are representing the Shoregals very well at the next level.


Shorty Sez:
We continue with our collection of motivtional sayings coming from the Twitter site called Women Love Sports which may be found at:

https://twitter.com/Women_Sports

Once there, here are some selected examples of tweets over the past week. Hope you find something that inspires you here:

You are successful the moment you start moving toward a worthwhile goal.

Wake up with DETERMINATION. Go to bed with SATISFACTION.

Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it. - George Halas

Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.

Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play. -Mike Singletary