Indialantic soccer club heading to Alaska
Michelle Adams would not mind at all should a moose amble across her soccer pitch.
“We have heard that has happened, that moose and even bears have been seen on the fields,” she said. “I’m so excited. I would love to see a moose.”
She may do that after her Indialantic Under-17 Girls’ Region Cup team heads north for the Alaska Airlines Cup tournament June 3 through 5 in Anchorage, Alaska.
“This means a lot to us because we’re used to living in Florida; we’ve never experienced anything like Alaska,” said Emma Iorio, a student at Melbourne Central Catholic High School and longtime member of the team, which has been together since its players were Under-8s.
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The Bulldogs will have taken a roundabout route to Alaska.
“The team has been saving for a trip for about two and a half years,” coach Myke Iorio said. “The team had really built a strong bond and doing well. I usually travel a few times a year to Europe for business (and) on one of my trips I arranged a meeting with a club in Austria. They invited us to come over to play teams from Austria, Germany and Switzerland. So after a meeting with the parents and players, most were on board to go.
“This kicked off a massive effort to fundraise for this trip to Europe. Over the last two years, the team has worked really hard doing raffles, gift-wrapping at Walmart, (working at) a bunch of concessions at tournaments, and even brought in two major pro soccer players to do a historic clinic at Hoover fields sponsored by Nesquik ... (U.S. Women’s National Team member) Sydney Leroux and (U.S. Men’s National Team great and commentator) Alexi Lalas.”
On the Bulldogs went, doing well at both soccer and fundraising but not having won the Region Cup (a level of play just below State Cup in the Florida Youth Soccer Association).
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“Fundraising had also done well but by October of 2015 we were still short of our original budget for a trip to Europe,” Iorio continued. “Also, with terror attacks happening more frequently, our families were not feeling comfortable about traveling internationally. After a team meeting in October we decided that a European trip just wasn’t in the best interest of the team so I set out on a mission to find us a great tournament in the states. I came up with the Alaskan Airlines Cup in Anchorage, Alaska. Hey, it’s still in the states, right?”
That was just fine with his players.
“I’ve never been farther away than the Bahamas, except for a trip to New York,” said Adams, a scholar-athlete at West Shore Junior/Senior High School. “I’m very excited to travel to Alaska but I’m also excited because it will be cool to play against players equipped for that kind of climate. Right now, temperatures there are in the mid-70s, but we just worry that if it rains, it will get really cold.”
They’re not worried about their opponents, though. They will be hosted by the Alaska Rush, with which a club in Orlando is affiliated, and which has been more than gracious about hosting a group from this far south.
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“After I reached out to the tournament director, they were delighted and extremely excited to have a team from Florida come up and play. They are giving us first-class treatment ... Although Indialantic soccer has a rich history and has been around for 36 years with multiple State Cup and Region Cup champions, I’m sure we are the first team to play soccer in Alaska,” Iorio said.
Mission accomplished there, and mission accomplished with the Region Cup too.
“That goal of winning Region Cup? I can check that off my list. The 2015-16 Force Bulldogs accomplished that goal back in March (and) are the current Region B Cup U-17 champions,” he said.
They did it, he added, because they play together well in more ways than one. “This is a close group,” he said.
“I think it’s going to bring us even closer together; traveling together will do that,” Emma Iorio said. “But we’re also hoping to see bears and a moose.”