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Sports

Beach Futbol Club Shines Away From Home

Kimberly Keever, who will be attending Mira Costa High in the fall, won the Golden Boot Award at the prestigious Manchester United Premier Cup in Beaverton, OR, where the Beach Futbol Club finished in eighth place.

What was your family doing over the Memorial Day weekend? Were you relaxing at the beach or taking in a movie before a big BBQ?

Maybe you were discussing the World Cup with some neighbors.

Well, a group of standout soccer players from the South Bay traveled to Oregon to test themselves against some of the best competition in the country at the prestigious Manchester Untied Premier Cup at the Nike Campus in Beaverton.

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Only teams ranked among the Top 20 in the country in their age groups were invited to the tournament—a group that included the Beach Futbol Club's Girls G95 team, which is coached by Shelly Marsden, the Redondo Union High girls soccer coach.

Just gaining an invitation to the tournament is a big accomplishment—when you think of how many soccer teams there are in the United States, how good do you have to be to be in the top 20 in your age group? But what these girls did on the field was truly amazing. The Beach Futbol Club team recorded victories over Lake Oswego, OR, 2-0, and then beat Crossfire Premier from Redmond, WA, by the same score 2-0.

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Once out of pool play they played the perennial powerhouse Alta Loma Arsenal FC in a defensive battle that was scoreless at the end of regulation. They fought kick for kick until losing the quarterfinal match on a goal on Arsenal's fifth penalty kick.

And one of their players, Kimberly Keever from Manhattan Beach, scored four goals and won the Golden Boot Award as the top scoring player in the tournament.

''It was really good competition and I think we did really well,'' Keever said. ''It was a lot of fun. The Arsenal was the hardest team we played. We beat them once before on PK's but this time we lost."

The Beach Futbol Club team ended up in eighth place out of the top 20 teams in the country and it was a trip they will never forget. Manhattan Beach was well represented on the team with five players—Keever, Katherine Atkinson, Kara Enomoto, Amanda McKeegan and Madison Miketa.

"I started with some of these girls at Under 9 and took over the team at U12,'' Marsden said. ''This tournament at Nike is a big deal with only the top 20 boys and girls U14 teams in the country being invited. What matters is the type of year you have at U13. Nike asked us to apply after our U13 team went to the National Cup finals and lost on PK's and then we also went to the Blue's Cup, another prestigious national tournament that we also went to the finals and lost in overtime. So for the two biggest tournaments in the country, we really established ourselves."

When asked for the key to her team's success, Mardsen was sure of one thing. "We work harder than anybody else,'' she said. ''We work out three days a week and play on weekends. We do a lot of beach training and friendly scrimmages. Every chance we get to play, we take it. Our motto is, 'No one is going to out work us and no regrets.' "

Keever will be going to Mira Costa High next year, and end up playing against some of her Beach FC teammates and coach. ''I've played for her team for two years and she's really fair,'' she said, when asked how it was playing for Redondo High's coach. ''It will be fun playing against her and some of the other girls in high school."

After a great weekend in Oregon, there is already talk of a Mira Costa-Redondo girls soccer rivalry brewing!

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