After beating teams from across the province including Weyburn, a rival Regina team and multiple Saskatoon squads, the U15 girls Bluestars have qualified for Nationals. Soccer Canada is holding the tournament in Surrey, B.C. this year, and it’ll be the first time many of the Bluestars players will play outside the prairies as well as their first experience at a Soccer Canada event. It’s a trip the girls are excited for, especially Meleke Neziri. “Going to Vancouver, Surrey B.C., is going to be just a brand-new chapter that our team is going to be opening up, so I’m really excited to experience something like that,” she said. While most teams are finished for the season, the Bluestars are still hard at work on and off the field preparing for nationals. I practice a lot by myself, a lot of us do that. But we practice two to three times a week, and we play once a week,” explained Lyla Davidson, who has been part of the Bluestars for the past three seasons. Lyla’s mother and team manager Carla Davidson says the girls deserve all the support necessary in order to make it to the national stage. “It’s about helping the girls emotionally too, because they’re all excited and they work really hard, train really hard, and also outside of here they did the extras right, on their own,” Carla said. However, the hard work put in over the whole season is facing an opponent that can’t be beat on the pitch. The cost of making the tournament feasible for the team. The team has done the traditional bottle drives and even some charity cornhole tournaments but nationals aren’t the same as the average weekend contests outside of the city. The goal for the Bluestars is $45,000. Although the team has worked hard searching for community sponsorships and did their own fundraising, they sit short of their goal by about half of the total needed to get the girls to, from, and through the tournament which runs from Oct. 6 until Oct.12. Despite the work still ahead, some players have taken the fundraising efforts as a positive team experience. “I don’t know, I think although the bottle drive was a little frustrating getting all the no’s and like barely any yes’s, I think it was still a fun bonding moment for us,” said player Lily O’Neil. The team’s first game is against North Shore GSC from Vancouver to kick off against the best of the best.
