The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
D’Aquila making mark in California
California is a world away from Connecticut, yet what Isabella D’Aquila is accomplishing on the soccer field in the Golden State is reverberating in Middletown.
The granddaughter of Tom D’Aquila, a Middletown High assistant softball coach, and niece of Tim, coach of the American Legion Post 75 baseball team, was one of six forwards selected last month to the 20-player roster for the CONCACAF Under-17 Women’s Championship.
Now, there’s an asterisk to the 16-year-old D’Aquila’s status. The CONCACAF Women’s U-17 Championship is playing out in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, over the next 10 days and she is not there. D’Aquila suffered a foot injury in a match prior to the U-17 team’s departure for South America. She traveled with the delegation, received treatment on her foot, but ultimately it wasn’t going to heal to the point that she could play, so she returned home.
Still, her absence has not diminished her rise in the sport and selection to the team. D’Aquila is expected to hold onto her spot on the 20-player roster if Team USA is one of its group’s top three finishers to qualify for the World Cup. The Americans faced Costa Rica on Friday, Bermuda on Sunday and Canada on Tuesday in roundrobin play, with the top two from the two three-team groups advancing to the semifinals April 27 (the final and the third-place matches are on April 29).
D’Aquila, a striker in every sense, plays a combined 10 months of soccer for her high school team, JSerra Catholic in San Juan
Capistrano, California, and her club team, the Southern California Blues. A natural scorer, she tallied 39 goals — five more than the previous year — during her junior season at JSerra, and was named Orange County player of the year by the Orange County Register for the second straight year.
Greg Baker, her coach at JSerra and with the Blues, said D’Aquila has worked hard to set herself apart from other players.
“Isabella being at an elite level comes from her work ethic,” said Baker, who began coaching D’Aquila when she was 11. “She was behind earlier in her career, technically and tactically,
but because she’s not about to be outworked by anyone, she has caught and surpassed other players who were ahead of her earlier.”
D’Aquila certainly is among the best of the best as a chosen U.S. U-17 national team member. Thirteen of Team USA’s 18 field players have scored in an international match. D’Aquila herself has eight goals in 11 international friendlies.
Playing high school soccer (it’s a winter sport at JSerra), is “playing for fun,” Carter said. It’s California’s club level that brings out college scouts and feeds Division I programs. D’Aquila has made a commitment to play in college at Santa Clara, a member of Division I’s West Coast Conference.
“Her Blues team is very good. We haven’t lost in over three years,” Baker said. “We’ve been national champions, state champions, regional champions, any champions you can think of.”
With the U-17 World Cup potentially ahead in November in Uruguay, and one more season of high school soccer, Baker is expecting to see special things out of D’Aquila’s game as a senior.
“I expect her to be a leader as a senior, and I expect her to shatter all scoring records for the school and our league, and she’s on pace to do it,” the coach said. “From a club perspective, she’s always been a golden boot for any league and in any tournament she’s played in. She’s always been a top goal
scorer and I want her to continue on that path and remain hungry in that pursuit.
“I want her to remain calm and cool. She’s got the intensity part down pat, but I would love to see her now become that technical finisher inside the 18 that she needs to be. She is aggressive by nature, which gives her advantage in the box. … She attacks and gets goals others don’t.”
D’Aquila comes from a family whose lives revolved around Middletown sports and still do. Her five uncles and aunts were multiplesport athletes at Middletown High. Her father played three sports at Middletown High, had a terrific Division III college baseball player and played in the Baltimore Orioles’ farm system.