Article content material
Girls’s soccer is on the rise in Calgary.
After signing offers final month, Mya Jones and Grace Stordy are proving that goals of turning professional can come true.
Article content material
Jones was drafted by the San Diego Wave FC of the Nationwide Girls’s Soccer League in a second she is going to always remember.
“It’s fairly surreal,” the Calgarian stated. “I’m surrounded by a variety of very well-known gamers and people who I’ve regarded as much as for a really very long time.”
Commercial 2
Article content material
The ahead provides there’s a variety of work to be executed earlier than she makes an impression on the sector. She says she has been studying day-after-day.
The Wave contains a plethora of veterans at ahead, together with established stars Alex Morgan and Sofia Jakobsson — gamers Jones can have no issues studying from in her first skilled season. Regardless of excessive expectations from the celebrities, Jones loves finding out the greats.
“I believe it’s only a nice studying expertise to look at individuals who have made such a huge impact within the girls’s sport,” she defined.
The Wave, who started play in 2022 as an growth workforce, have already made waves of their quick time within the NWSL by successful the 2024 Challenger Cup.
The 22-year-old Jones shall be thrust right into a successful tradition to start her profession. She believes there’s a very coherent objective of repeating within the locker room.
“What we’re working in the direction of may be very clear,” she stated. “So It’s undoubtedly a really arduous, cutthroat atmosphere. However typically it’s constructive and difficult in a great way.”
Jones provides she has one objective this season, and that’s to win the championship. Her membership was set to start that quest in its season-opener at residence Saturday evening in opposition to the Kansas Metropolis Present.
Midday Information Roundup
Article content material
Commercial 3
Article content material
Jones performed for Calgary Foothills FC from ages 15 to 21. She credit this system for serving to develop her sport.
“I believe a variety of the teaching employees at Foothills believed in me at a really younger age,” she stated. “They actually pushed me out of my consolation zone to pursue issues past Calgary into knowledgeable sport.”
Fellow Calgarian Stordy signed knowledgeable take care of SC Braga. The Portuguese facet presently sits third on the desk within the Campeonato Nacional Feminino with a 10-2-5 file.
Calgary Foothills Soccer Membership’s women academy supervisor Lee Tucker labored carefully with Stordy throughout her time with the workforce.
“It’s all the time an excellent expertise working along with her,” Tucker stated. “She has an excellent perspective and evokes these round her to work tougher.”
Tucker speaks extremely of the 22-year-old defender’s all-around sport, saying will probably be thrilling to look at for followers.
In her first assertion since becoming a member of the membership, Stordy advised SC Braga media she is tremendous motivated to assist the workforce.
Stordy describes herself as an offensive-driven participant.
“I’m good at beating opponents, crossing and taking pictures,” she is quoted as saying on the SC Braga web site. “I like working with my teammates to construct assaults by way of the line of defense.”
Commercial 4
Article content material
She believes she can also be good on the defensive facet of the ball, stating that she is hard, good at intercepting and attending to the ball first.
Stordy and Jones signing offers with skilled squads places Calgary within the girls’s soccer highlight.
“I believe it’s simply paving the best way for youthful generations and youthful women to see that it’s attainable,” stated Jones, on making it to the professional stage.
Tucker calls the 2 gamers inspiring, including they’ve grow to be position fashions to youthful gamers who’re developing the ranks in Foothills. The coach says Jones and Stordy present that there are a number of paths to get to the following stage in girls’s soccer.
The expansion of ladies’s soccer throughout Canada will solely proceed. In 2025, Calgary Foothills WFC will be part of the Vancouver White Caps, AFC Toronto Metropolis and 5 different unannounced groups within the Venture 8 home soccer league.
The Division I professional-level league will present extra alternatives for native gamers to get a style of the professionals.
“It’s a chance to encourage the following technology,” Tucker stated. “It’s a chance to convey again (Canadian) gamers who’re enjoying around the globe and provides them a chance to play skilled soccer in Canada.”
With extra alternative to increase the sport of soccer in Calgary, count on Stordy and Jones to proceed to be an inspiration for rising stars who wish to make it to the skilled stage.
mkaake@postmedia.com
Article content material
