Two young athletes from SportsTutor Futsal Academy have been chosen to play for the United States Youth Futsal 2012 International Team next month in Brazil, while another two local players were selected as alternates for the team.
Scarlett Foster and Zoë Smith will join 10 other girls from across the nation in Brazil to represent Team USA. They will undergo a week of training, matches and various other cultural excursions. Teammates Kathryn Grant and Carleigh Morris were selected as alternates.
Their journeys all started in Owensboro when they completed the State ID trials at the Owensboro Convention Center, where coaches and trainers from across the country were in attendance.
“We just really attended these trials in Owensboro just because they were going to be a great training opportunity and it was close to home,” Scarlett’s mom Jennifer Foster said.
Then the girls received invites to the National ID Trial Kansas City last month. Their full team was already paying in the national tournament in Kansas City, do the girls decided to take the chance to grow their experience and learn under some new coaches.
“It was basically just going there for tutelage. We had no idea in our wildest imaginations that Zoë was going to go to this thing at Owensboro Convention Center, and she’ll end up in Brazil in a couple of months,” Zoë’s dad Gus Smith said.
According to their parents, the girls were each getting pulled away and being told they had the potential to be some of the best at the national trials.
Gus recalled the coaches saying his daughter was getting put in groups with some of the top girls in the country. When the emails and phone calls came, though, each girl was shocked to hear about their selection.
Jennifer said her daughter was just proud to have the chance to participate in the trials, let alone be chosen for the team.
“She just thought, ‘hey, this was a great opportunity.’ She didn’t expect to get a call, but she was just excited to be able to possibly have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity be able to get together, so she was just excited,” Jennifer said.
Kathryn’s mom Dana Kabalan said, “She was shocked, she didn’t have much expectation to getting on the team. “he was excited for that email when she found out.”
Chelsea Morris said her daughter Carleigh “couldn’t believe it. She was extremely excited. Her first reaction was, ‘I can’t wait to find out who is going’ and when I told her her teammates were going, she was over the moon.”
She said that the reaction she has shows the bond between the team and that even though Carleigh was selected to be an alternate, the four of them all felt like they won.
“I probably would have been like, ‘oh, man, I didn’t make it’ or ‘I made it, but I’m an alternate,’ and none of these girls had that reaction. They were so thrilled for their teammates. They were excited. They’ve been cheering them on,” Chelsea said.
To learn more about the tournament or to donate to help fund the trip, visit SportsTutor’s Facebook page here.
SportsTutor owner and director Ty Stauffer did not comment in time for publishing.
