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Washington Freedom Press Release - www.washingtonfreedom.com

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

BOYDS, MD – With the 2008 Super Y-League regular season coming quickly to an end, the Washington Freedom is wrapping up its second successful season in the league. The Freedom added two age groups to its all female youth set up for the 2008 season in the U-13 and U-15 divisions. With a successful past, the Freedom has used its senior team, the 2007 W-League champions, as its model for success. This season the U-20’s have already played in their third consecutive North American Finals and the U-16 and U-14 teams have already qualified for the North American Finals in November, with the U-13’s a point away with two games left to play.

Super-20
2008 saw the Freedom’s U-20 team complete the regular season unbeaten (9-0-1) for the second year running. With a slight change to the league set up, playing each team in the Mid-Atlantic division once rather than a split division playing each team home and away, the competition was much stronger than in 2007.

“We felt the level of competition helped to develop our players through the summer and prepare them for their college seasons,” said Freedom U-20 Coach and Youth Coordinator Win Puffer. “That coupled with the fact that we invite all our U-20’s to train with our W-League team throughout the summer is a tremendous asset to help our players reach their potential.”

Unfortunately, after two great 4-0 wins against Toronto and TSF at the Super-20 Finals, a tough 1-0 loss against eventual Super-20 Champions Triangle FC saw the Freedom bow out of the North American Finals.

U-16
The U-16 Freedom’s was the first of the SYL teams to secure their position at the 2008 North American Finals with still two games left on their schedule. The Freedom is 6-0-2 with a tremendous 26 goals scored while only allowing 3 goals against in just 8 games. The Freedom’s toughest game came against first place Parsippany, which ended in a 0-0 draw at the Maryland SoccerPlex.

“We’re excited to head back to Tampa with this group, the team is really playing well at this point in the season” said co-coach Clyde Watson.

U-15
An age group the Freedom had not planned on hosting in 2008, the U-15 team was taken over from DC United as a start of a blossoming partnership between the two top professional teams in the Washington DC area. With a large number of younger players on the U-15’s, they have shown to be a force that every team should take notice of.

“A mid-table finish does not accurately tell the story of this team’s season,” said the Freedom’s Youth Coordinator Win Puffer. “We’ve had such a small squad and have had to utilize players from our younger teams for each of the matches, but the team has played exceptionally well this summer regardless. We fully expect to reinforce this age group for next year and really push the top teams for a spot in the finals for 2009. We have a strong core of players that have great potential.”

U-14
After missing out on the North American Finals with a 7-3-4 record in 2007, the U-14’s have worked very hard to qualify for the 2008 playoffs. Having finished their season on Saturday, the team finished 13-1-0 with a league leading 59 goals scored and garnered first place in Group C. The Freedom’s only blemish came from the second place team in Group C, the City Islanders Academy.

“This is a highly talented group of young ladies who have worked hard this summer,” said Coach Clyde Watson. “Many of the girls have had the opportunity to play with our U-15 and U-16 teams through the summer as well and we can’t be more proud of the way the girls are developing.”

U-13
A new addition to the Freedom club, the U-13’s have held up the Freedom standard extremely well. Currently fighting for one of the playoff spots, the U-13 team has posted some fine results for a record of 10-1-1. The team’s play has steadily improved as the players have grown accustomed to playing the “Freedom” style.

“The decisions that the girls are making during their games have gotten better and better each and every game,” said Clyde Watson. “The girls are showing a maturity rarely seen at this age.”