Girls U15 youth soccer team first to win national title
A national championship eluded Century West in 2019, but such would not be the case again this summer.
The Western Pennsylvaniabased youth soccer club won the U15 Girls Presidents Cup National Championship July 11 in Des Moines, Iowa, topping MetaSport FC (Utah), 1-0, in the finals. Century West’s victory made it the first PA West soccer team, boys or girls, to ever win a Presidents Cup.
Coach Chris Lantzy, who has led this Century West team since 2018 and previously coached at Blackhawk, could hardly contain his excitement for a group he has watched improve throughout his tenure.
“I think their competitiveness has really, really increased over time,” Lantzy said. “We lacked a little bit of that fire when we first got going, but as time has gone on and they’ve gotten a taste of winning, they’re really competitive now and in a good way.”
Two summers ago when competing on the same platform, Century West finished in third. With the players being two years older and that much more cohesive as a group, Lantzy’s defense was able to lead the way to victory.
Century West allowed just four goals throughout the duration of the Presidents Cup, with only one of them coming from the run of play.
Though goalkeeper Serayah Leech, a rising sophomore at Moon High School, drew glowing remarks from Lantzy for her performances, it was the defense in front of her that limited opponents’ scoring opportunities.
“They know when to pressure, they know when to back each other up, and they do that to perfection,” Lantzy said. “That’s the thing I’m most impressed with our back line, they just refuse to be beaten.”
But in the championship game, it was an injury-plagued Century West squad that took the pitch for the low scoring affair. Out of necessity, West Allegheny Middle School’s Kylie Holtz was called up from the U13 team and delivered the final’s only goal a little more than halfway through the opening 45 minutes of play.
“[Holtz] played unbelievably in the tournament, you would never know she was playing two years up,” Lantzy said. “She did not play like a 2008 [birth year], she was really good in both regionals and nationals.”
Holtz’s goal was set up brilliantly by rising sophomores Morgan Keller ( Freedom) and Dionna “Tiger” Santia (Hopewell). They, in addition to the rest of Century West’s 11 players on the field, were fully “bought into” the team concepts that Lantzy has long preached about.
Rather than chasing personal accolades, Century West chooses to triumph together in victory. The results are undeniable, especially after a championship game that hardly had Lantzy worried during the second half.
“Even though it was a 1-0 final and it was a really tight game, I was really confident that whole half just by the way we were playing that they weren’t going to score and we were going to be able to finish it off.”
While golden boot winner Kami Ward of Oak Glen High School in New Cumberland, W.Va., was held scoreless against MetaSport FC, the rest of Century West’s roster that is littered with players from Beaver, Canon-McMillan and Riverside more than picked up the slack.
For Lantzy, who has witnessed the team’s growth firsthand as both a coach and parent ( his daughter, Julianna, is a team member and rising sophomore at Moon), he could not be happier for Century West as a team and its players on the roster as they close out their season.
“Just seeing them get the reward for not only working hard and competing, but just being great human beings,” Lantzy said. “It’s a great bunch of young women who have a lot of character.”