For proof positive that 2001 was a very good year, check out the Millennium U12 girls select soccer team.
"Our team is made up of girls who were born in the year 2001," explains coach Lisa Wigard. "From June until August 2012, 29 girls from this birth year tried out for an opportunity to play on this select team that had 24 spots. At our first party as a team, the girls came up with the team name 'Millennium' based on their birth year."
Wigard notes U12 is the first year boys and girls enter the Select program with the Comox Valley United Soccer Club, and it is considered a development year. "At this age we play eight-a-side soccer, so we train and play with two full teams. Each time we play we try to make sure that our teams are split according to our competition. This does require the girls to adjust to playing with a different set of players all of the time, but they are handling it very well," said Wigard.
Since September, the Millennium girls have been training as a select team one day a week along with playing in CVUSC house soccer system with one practice and one game a week. "As a select team we play at least two Sundays a month and often more.
"Some of these girls are even doing extra soccer sessions with our club’s Strikers Clinic and other soccer camps just to get more touches on the ball. Everyone plays soccer four days a week and some play five!" Wigard said.
"The girls are embracing this opportunity and improving rapidly. A team we lost to 8-0 at the beginning of the season, we only lost 1-0 to a couple of weeks ago," Wigard noted.
"Over and above the improvement in the game, these girls from all different parts of the Comox Valley are forming strong and lasting friendships which will last long past their soccer days. Jim Stewart, Matt Laver and I are very proud to coach this group of young ladies and we look forward to watching them grow on and off the soccer field," said Wigard.
– Millennium U12 girls select soccer