Future is bright for impressive team
The Beadling U-16 girls soccer team posted impressive numbers this summer.
It finished the summer with a 21-5-1 record. At one point It was ranked No. 4 in the country. It won the PA West title for the fifth consecutive season.
At the Region I championships, it won all five games, outscoring the competition, 15-0. The Region I title game was the seventh consecutive shutout victory for the team.
An even more impressive number has to do with what is next for these girls.
Fourteen of the 20 players on the roster are already committed to colleges
And this is coming from a team comprised mostly of rising juniors. There are two sophomores and two seniors on the roster as well.
And 13 of the commitments are to Division I programs.
“It is not typical to have nearly an entire team committed,” coach Rob Fabean said. “It is a tribute to how good of a team they are and the level of competition we play.”
Fabean said some games in the prestigious National League
against out-of-state competition have drawn as many as 110 college coaches.
“To draw these coaches, that says a lot about the girls,” Fabean said. “And the girls that are not committed yet, there is no doubt in my mind by the end of the year they’ll have offers.”
Fabean coaches the team along with Steve Thomas.
Beadling was at its best at the Region I championships.
“I thought going in we had a pretty good shot at winning it,” Fabean said. “We played most of the teams that were going to be there and we were pretty confident that if we played well, we would win it. We certainly played extremely well from a defensive perspective, not allowing a single goal the entire tournament.”
The Region I title qualified the Beadling team for the national championships during the week of July 20. Beadling was unable to get out of group play in the eight-team U-16 field. They were one of three Beadling teams to qualify for nationals along with U-18 and U-19.
The Region I championship also qualified Beadling for the National League. That will resume in December when the group will be U-17. They will play four games in North Carolina in December and then resume play in March in Las Vegas with three more games
“It was a tremendous experience, being one of only eight teams left in the country,” Fabean said of the national championships. “Just to be playing in that tournament was a great experience for them. The competition was obviously elite. We had three very tough games and the girls learned a lot from it and know what they need to do.”
It was the first trip to nationals for this group of girls.
The team is comprised mostly of WPIAL players with a few others from out of the district as well. The U-16 team features a number of high school teammates and future college teammates. Norwin’s Marley Smith, Fox Chapel’s Deena Debaldo and Hickory’s Lauren Bell have committed to Duquesne. North Hills’ Taylor Burkley and Greensburg Central Catholic’s Keli Rosensteel have committed to Robert Morris. Moon’s Emma Thomas and Chartiers Valley’s Morgan Henderson will be attending Dayton in the fall of 2017.
Montour teammates Samantha White and Maggie Sabol, Fox Chapel teammates AnnaMarie Alfery, Dixon Veltri and Debaldo, Norwin teammates Smith and Lexi Kolano and Penn-Trafford teammates Athena Biondi and Ryley Watt are on the U-16 team. Kolana will attend Cincinnati, Biondi has committed to Michigan State, Watt committed to Akron and Veltri to University of North Carolina-Wilmington. Canon-McMillan rising junior Megan Virgin will play at Long Island University. The other players on the roster are Villa Maria Academy’s Makena Silber, a 2018 graduate who has already committed to Illinois, Somerset’s Maddie McKinley, a Rollins commit and Peters Township’s Mackenzie Gentile and Seneca Valley’s Delaney Lisco.