Julia Roberts only local named to women's under 17s

McLean Freedom and Urbana High School defender Julia Roberts was the only local player named to the U.S. Under-17 Women’s National Team by head coach Kazbek Tambi for the 2008 CONCACAF U-17 Women’s Championship from July 17-27 in Trinidad & Tobago. It will be the first CONCACAF tournament staged at the Under-17 women’s level with three teams from the region qualifying for the inaugural FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup to be held later this year in New Zealand.

The U.S. U-17 Women are drawn into Group A along with Costa Rica, El Salvador and hosts Trinidad & Tobago. The U.S. U-17 Women will kick off their participation in the tournament on Friday, July 18, against Costa Rica at 5 p.m. ET. The U.S. will take on El Salvador two days later at 4 p.m. ET, with the final group match on Tuesday, July 22, at 7 p.m. ET. All Group A matches will take place at Marvin Lee Stadium in Macoya, Trinidad.

Group B, which will play their matches at Dwight Yorke Stadium in Tobago, consists of Canada, Jamaica, Mexico and Puerto Rico.

“I’m really excited about this group,” said Tambi, who has evaluated players over the last two years. “We’ve been fortunate to have a lot of training camps under our belt over the last several months and we’ve gotten better with each camp. It’s a very high motivated group, a very talented group and they’re dream is the same as mine, which is try to get to a world cup, first and foremost, and then to try to win it, also.”

Of the 20 players named to the roster, 15 were born in 1991, three in 1992 and two in 1993. The roster also features the sister duo of Kristen and Samantha Mewis. The sisters, who are one year apart in age, are the first sisters to play together on a World Cup qualifying team. Victoria DiMartino is also on the U-17 squad just weeks after her sister, Gina, helped the U.S. U-20 Women’s National Team qualify for the 2008 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Chile.

The team will travel to Trinidad on Sunday, July 13, and train for four days before opening group play. The winners of the semifinal matches on Thursday, July 24 with advance to New Zealand along with the winner of the third place match. In the semifinals, the winners of Group A will face the Group B runner-up at 7:30 p.m. ET and the Group A runner-up will face the Group B winner at 5 p.m. ET.

The Third Place match will take place at 4 p.m. ET and the Final will take place at 6:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, July 27. All of the second round and placement matches will take place at Marvin Lee Stadium.

“Given that it’s the first ever [championship] at this age bracket, we have a group of players who haven’t had this kind of experience,” said Tambi. “To some degree, this is kind of like a first-time experiment and we’ll be learning on the job when we get there. Our plan is to take each game at a time and treat it like it’s the biggest game and try to prevail in each game and then move on to the next.”

The 2008 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup will take place in four New Zealand cities from Oct. 28 until Nov. 16. The draw for the event took place June 1, where the winner of the CONCACAF qualifying tournament was drawn into Group C as the seeded team along with Japan, France and Paraguay. Host New Zealand, Germany and Brazil garnered the other three seeds.

One other CONCACAF team will play in Group A with host New Zealand, Colombia and Denmark. The other CONCACAF qualifier will play in Group B with Germany, North Korea and an African team. Group D features Brazil, England, South Korea and the other African qualifier.

Florida and New York contribute the most players to the U.S. U-17 roster, with three each. California, Illinois and Massachusetts each add two players while Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and Washington contribute one player each.

U.S. Under-17 Women’s National Team
CONCACAF Qualifying
Macoya, Trinidad
July 13-28, 2008

GOALKEEPERS (3): Alexa Gaul (Naperville, Ill.), Taylor Vancil (South Elgin, Ill.), Kelsey Wys (Coral Springs, Fla.)

DEFENDERS (6): Morgan Brian (St. Simons Island, Ga.), Amber Brooks (New Hope, Pa.), Cloee Colohan (West Point, Utah), Crystal Dunn (Rockville Center, N.Y.), Alexis Harris (Plano, Texas), Julia Roberts (Fredrick, Md.)

MIDFIELDERS (6): Kathryn Bennett (Clyde Hill, Wash.), Olivia Klei (Pleasanton, Calif.), Kristen Mewis (Hanson, Mass.), Samantha Mewis (Hanson, Mass.), Sydney Payne (Lutz, Fla.), Erika Tymrak (Bradenton, Fla.)

FORWARDS (5): Tani Costa (Honolulu, Hawaii), Victoria DiMartino (Massapequa, N.Y.), Samantha Johnson (Palmdale, Calif.), Rachel Nuzzolese (Melville, N.Y.), Courtney Verloo (Tualatin, Ore.)