U17 WNT and Massachusetts standout Kristen Mewis received the Girls Youth Player of the Year award at the NSCAA Convention in St. Louis Saturday.

Mewis, a tall and highly skilled midfielder, has been terrorizing opposing defenses in New England and around the country for her South Coast Scorpions team for years. Playing up a year, Mewis also was a fixture with the Region I ODP team and with youth national teams, most recently starting on Kazbek Tambi’s U17 WNT at the inaugural FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup in New Zealand, where the U.S. team took 2nd place to North Korea.

Despite all the rarified air, Mewis still finds her club team a special place.

“I’ve always loved playing with my club team. I’ve always been so close to them,” Mewis said. “Even though they’ve always been a year older than me it’s been great playing with them and they’ve always been role models for me. My club team feels like my home.”

With most of that team already in college, Mewis will finish her club career with the nearby South Shore Select squad.

Accompanied at the ceremony by her parents Bob and Melissa, Kristen thought of family first when asked about coaching influences

“My dad has been a great influence. He’s the one who first got me started,” she said. “My high school coach (David Floeck) has been unbelievable. All my regional coaches and my recent national team coach, Kazbek Tambi. He’s taught me such a different way to play the game. He was really helpful in New Zealand.”

After finishing her senior year of high school, Mewis will be enrolling at Boston College. More immediately however she is part of a training camp next week in Chula Vista, CA where the next cycle of the U20 WNT begins under the tutelage of UCLA head coach Jillian Ellis. This camp is a joint U18-U20 event and is the beginning of the process for the 2010 U20 World Cup.

“I’m kind of scared,” Mewis said. “But I’m looking forward to starting the process again.”

Other leading award winners at the luncheon were U17 MNT goalkeeper Earl Edwards, Boys Youth Player of the Year; PA Classics midfielder Andrew Wenger, Boys High School Player of the Year (Warwick HS); Eclipse Select playmaker Brianne Rodriguez, Girls High School Player of the Year (Waubonside Valley HS); World Class Arsenal midfielder Amber Brooks, Girls Scholar Athlete of the Year (The Pennington School) ; and Jeremy Gray, Boys Scholar Athlete of the Year (Columbus DeSales  HS).