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IOWA — Last Sunday was a big day for soccer — women's soccer in particular.
It was a banner day for the U.S. Women's World Cup Soccer team, which won in a remarkable nail-biter. But they weren't the only ones celebrating that day.
A Utah soccer team called La Roca U-17 won a national tournament in Iowa, beating a squad from Chicago.
La Roca made its big national breakthrough on the exact same day, in fact within minutes of the U.S. women winning at the women's World Cup.
"Yes, it's pretty amazing," said La Roca U-17 coach David Chevez, "I'm not really 100 percent positive, but I think we're the first team in Utah to say we're national champions."
"This year has been wonderful for them, and I'm very proud of them," said La Roca director of coaching Adolfo Ovalle. "Kudos to them, and hopefully we place most of those girls in colleges and they keep going at the next level."
Just like the U.S. team,La Roca had drama along the way. They won in a regional tournament 6-5 in OT, after trailing 5-2 with 10 minutes left.
"It showed us that anything is possible in any game," said La Roca midfielder and co-captain McKenna Elliott."Scoring three goals in six minutes. That's pretty amazing and we had to fight hard."
The team agrees that most of their success is thanks to their coaches. "Commitment," said midfielder and co-captain Kassandra Anderson. "To be able to come to all the practices and to be able to work hard in all of the practices and then to go and show what we've done in the practices in games."
E-mail: jdaley@ksl.com
