The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Award winner D’Aquila has ties to Middletown
Gatorade does more than churn out an endless supply of sports drinks and protein powders. Every year since 1985, the company has recognized elite high school athletes at the state and national levels for on-field performance, academic achievement and fine character.
Earlier this week, Isabella D’Aquila, whose father attended Middletown schools and whose grandparents live in the city, was the recipient of Gatorade’s award for California in girls soccer.
Then came the big one. D’Aquila on Thursday was named 2017-18 Gatorade National Girls Soccer Player of the Year. Between her most recent season at San Juan Capistrano’s JSerra Catholic High School, and with her club and the U-17 Women’s National teams, D’Aquila produced 101 goals and 44 assists.
Gatorade usually earmarks its national awards for high school seniors. D’Aquila recently finished her junior year at JSerra and turns 17 in September.
“This is a very huge deal, a very great honor to be given at my age,” she told the Press in a phone interview from Redmond, Washington. “It’s really awesome getting it this year. I see it as motivation to go and do better my senior year, to try and outdo myself more than trying to outdo other players. If it’s more about competing against myself, then I have a better chance of being successful and getting where I want to be in life.
“What’s gotten me to this point is the extra work and the extra training, and my mom and dad giving me all of the support to do it.”
D’Aquila’s long-range goal would be to play at the highest level of soccer the United States has to offer.
“I would love to be a pro player,” she said. “I’ve been working with the U-17 team for a while now, and ultimately I want to play on the U.S. senior national team and go to the Olympics. As a pro, America or overseas in the European leagues, either would be great.”
D’Aquila, a 5-foot-7 cen-
ter/forward, is playing soccer this weekend just outside of Seattle with her club team, the SoCal Waves, in the Elite Clubs National League tournament. Advancing to the semifinals would mean a trip to Virginia for that round and possibly the final.
“This tournament is the huge one for our club. This is for everything we work for,” she said.
In her junior season at JSerra, D’Aquila had 39 goals and 15 assists. She scored the lone goal in the team’s state championship victory, and later was named section player of the year for the second time.
In the spring, she made the U.S. roster for the CONCACAF U-17 Women’s World Cup qualifier after participating in multiple training camps. An injury knocked her out of the competition in Nicaragua. Eventually, the tournament was postponed and rescheduled earlier this
month in Florida, where the U.S. securing one of three berths for the U-17 World Cup in November in Uruguay.
The final roster will be determined this fall, and D’Aquila hopes to be on that one, too. She has eight goals in 11 international friendlies.
“Being on the roster (for the qualifier), it was devastating not to be able to continue. I will work as hard as I can to get back on the roster and go to the World Cup,” she said.
D’Aquila has a 4.31 weighted GPA. Back in 2017,
she gave a verbal commitment to play at Division I Santa Clara on scholarship in the fall of 2019. She intends to keep the commitment and is thinking about studying physical therapy.
“I ultimately chose that school out of pure love for it,” she said. “It’s probably my favorite school I’ve visited. The program itself is family-oriented and the coaching staff told me, ‘We want to get you where you want to go, to the point of my career where I want to.’ It was the best fit.”