The Andromeda SC U18 team has already accomplished a lot, winning a U.S. Youth Soccer National Championship last year in the U17 age group.

Midway through their final season, coach Mike Powers says the squad is enjoying the challenge and format of the USSF Academy League, and now looks forward to a very full six months of soccer.

“We’re in the SuperGroup of the Dallas Cup (playing against international clubs) and then we’ll have a lot of incentive to continue playing at a high level against Academy teams from other parts of the country,” Powers said. “After getting to nationals we found everyone we played in Dallas (in the fall Academy schedule) wants to bring their A game against us, so it’s a little more difficult.”

A number of the squad members have already committed to Division One college programs including the coach’s son Dillon Powers, a Notre Dame recruit who also just returned from a successful tour with the U18 Men’s National Team in Australia. Other verbal commitments in the group include Grant Van De Casteele (Notre Dame), Ryan McDuff (Brown), Jonathan Smith (Valparaiso), Sam Haines (Valparaiso), Ryan Morales (American), Matt Bewley (Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and Sewell Strifler (Dayton), with a few others still deciding between D1 offers.

“We have some young players who we hope to have play in a few games this spring,” Powers added. “They’ve trained with us be haven’t really featured in any games yet.”

Andromeda leads the Texas U18 division with an overall mark of 9-1-5 after a fall season of play against mainly other Texas teams. Powers said the extra input provided by Academy scouting is helpful.

We have liked it. In 75 percnet of the games there are additional scouts out watching to give us feedback,” he said. “As a coach I get used to my own team, so getting a fresh perspective from someone, that you did this well, but I saw this here, I enjoy that kind of feedback from another source. What we did before in Dallas was pretty competitive but this was another level.”