Eighteen soccer players recently had the experience of a lifetime when they traveled to Europe for 12 days of matches.
Members of the NorthStar90 Premier soccer team based in Traverse City pitted their skills against teams from England, Sweden and Denmark during the tour, playing some of their best soccer ever. In one tough match, they were paired with the best Under 17 girls team in Denmark.
"I think our game in Denmark was the hardest game we played, they were the most difficult team and we were pretty excited to hold them off at just 2-0," said Kelly Korbel, who will be a junior at Central High School. "They play with a style that's really similar to our style so it was really neat to play a really high level team like us except that they were a little bit better."
An outside midfielder, Korbel has played the game since she was two or three and will begin her fifth season with the NorthStar90 this fall. She and her teammates earned a spot in the Premier League's top division so they will play the best teams in the state this fall. Korbel believes that everything the girls learned on the European fields will only boost their performance in these intense face-offs.
"I think that this fall we're going to use our experiences from Europe and that high intensity and that's really going to get us places," she said.
Coach Darrell Rogers, who co-founded the Traverse Bay Area Youth Soccer league in 1988, started the NorthStar organization 12 years ago. His youngest daughter, Maggie, is on the Under 17 team, which has been playing together since they were Under 12s.
The organization draws the best female players from around the region, with participants coming from Traverse City as well as Petoskey, Charlevoix, Suttons Bay and Glen Lake. Playing matches around the state during the fall club season, last year the team made it to the semi-finals of the Michigan State Cup, the club championship of Michigan, and hopes to best that performance this year.
Besides the opportunity to travel overseas, the European trip provided players with an intense summer camp experience. In Sweden they participated in the Gothia Cup, which drew youth teams from 52 countries — including, the club discovered, a boys' team from Petoskey.
"It's very hard in northern Michigan because we're all from small communities and we want to compete with the best teams from the state, region and country so we seek out opportunities," noted Rogers. "That's why we wanted to play this team from Denmark: how often do you get to play the best team in the country?"
"We probably played our best soccer ever in the tournament," added Rogers. "We should have a fun fall."
Players, parents and coaches have been planning the European venture for more than four years, determined to immerse the girls in international competition. The fundraising and itinerary took time to plan and organize, but the benefits were well worth the effort.
"They're very serious about their soccer," said Rogers. "There were times when we were having fun and sightseeing and there were times they were totally focused on soccer."
Abbie Entz, a junior at West High School, is a forward for the NorthStar90 team and has been playing the game for eight years. The close-knit group also enjoyed their time away from the playing fields, for many of them it was their first chance to explore Europe.
"I think it was a good chance for us all to bond and have fun doing things besides soccer," she said.
Relishing the high-level of competition and different styles of play against the teams from other countries, Entz and her teammates also enjoyed the warm welcome from other players.
"Lots of people wanted to talk with us or get pictures with us, like the Swedish teams we played they wanted pictures with us afterwards just because we were Americans," Entz noted. "We traded T-shirts with them. I now have a Swedish pen pal, too, one of the girls we played with."