U17 Girls team AFC Lightning proved that results are not predetermined in Girls club soccer, as they defeated a trio of U.S. Youth Soccer National League participants to win the U17 Showcase division last weekend at Walt Disney World.

AFC, based in greater Atlanta, beat Region I powerhouse PDA Fire in the semifinal, coming back from a 2-goal deficit to win 3-2 behind a goal from Mandy McCalla and two from Erin Emerson.

In a 1-0 win over defending national champion Dallas Texans in the final, Kaitlyn Stroud recorded the shutout in goal for AFC, with offense coming via an own goal on a well-taken corner kick from Andrea Dawson.

But AFC coach Andy Thompson said a 1-0 group stage win over Dallas Sting, where the winning goal came from Carli Shultis, was what really got the squad thinking they could compete with everyone at Disney. Sting had knocked AFC out of the Region III Championships last summer.

“We went 0-3 in this tournament last year and honestly didn’t play particularly well,” Thompson said. “We’re a very good team, but winning here is obviously a different level. We told the girls if they wanted to compete in a national championship, and not just state and regional, they would have to measure up against teams like these. Any time we’re playing North Texas teams you have to mentally get over the hump, and to beat that Sting team finally was huge for us.”

AFC standout center back Katrina Frost said the team had self-belief before Disney, but admitted the victories at Disney will make a big difference to the team’s confidence.

“It’s not that we didn’t believe we could do it, but we have had kind of a tough year,” she said. “We knew we had it in us even if we don’t always play to our best potential. This year we’ve been working hard and we went into that Sting game with the attitude of ‘we’re not going to let this happen again.’ There was a lot of determination on our part. That was a really sweet victory.”

Frost added that the team realized the big win over Sting could go for naught when they fell behind to PDA 2-0 in the semifinals.

We knew we had to pull together if we wanted to go to the final. We were trying to get each other pumped up and ended up coming back for one of the sweetest victories in the tournament,” she said. “We are a bunch of sisters, one big family. Off the soccer field we hang out together. We’ve been together for many years and have that connection off and on the field.”


AFC Lightning 92 Roster

Kaitlyn Stroud (GK), Kayla Curtis, Christine Villanueva, Erin Emerson, A’shanae Monre, Devon Fry, Amanda McCalla, Kelsey Barr, Holly Crawford, Sarah Daane, Carli Shultis, Andrea Dawson, Jewelia Strickland, Katrina Frost, Jordan Sink, Erin Pincombe, Courtney Reddig