Photo courtesy of the Lightner Family
Guest Contributor: Brett Samet is majoring in journalism at the University of Kansas and authored the blog post below. A San Antonio native, Brett has worked with Sporting KC for each of the last three seasons.
With such an overwhelmingly deep and youthful team, Sporting KC fans probably haven’t taken an opportunity to take a look at the future of the club. I too can fall under this description. However, after taking a glimpse at the Sporting KC’s U-16 and U-18 teams, the future somehow looks to be even brighter than the club’s current state. This seems kind of stunning considering the senior club’s five-game win streak to start the season. However, there is a lot to be excited about if you are a Sporting soccer fan.
After a very promising month of December in which they went 3-0-0, the U-18’s are 5-5-1 overall and are currently sitting in second place in the Central Conference’s Frontier Division. The club has seen some excellent individual performances across the board, as nine players have already recorded at least one goal this season. A few of the players have already gotten looks from the senior squad. This includes Liberal, Kansas native Eduardo Moreno who has posted six goals this season and goalkeeper Jacole Turner who recently returned from a training camp with the U.S. Men's Under-18 National Team.
The U-16’s are 3-3-5 overall and are coming off an unbeaten weekend against the Colorado Rapids two weeks ago. Sitting in first place in the Frontier Division, the 16’s have received goals from eight different players this season and are led in scoring by Cole Stevenson with six goals thus far in Development Academy play.
Both teams will travel north this weekend for a pair of conference matches in the USSDA. On Saturday, they will face Shattuck-Saint Mary’s Soccer Academy before battling the Minnesota Thunder Academy on Sunday. Follow @SKCJuniors and @MNThundAcademy on Twitter for updates.
