(L-R)Kelli Chamberlain, Caitlin Pawlett, and Stephanie Kirkham, from North Bay, are also members of CR Select, a Toronto-based soccer team which has played games in Mexico and Sweden. Photo by Levi Perry, Special to BayToday.ca.
(L-R)Kelli Chamberlain, Caitlin Pawlett, and Stephanie Kirkham, from North Bay, are also members of CR Select, a Toronto-based soccer team which has played games in Mexico and Sweden. Photo by Levi Perry, Special to BayToday.ca.
Three North Bay girls have just come back from Mexico where they took part in winning two soccer championships including the Copa Monterrey.
Kelli Chamberlain, 15, Stephanie Kirkham, 17, and Caitlin Pawlett, 16, are part of C.R. Select, a Toronto-based team that plays in the provincial Under-18 soccer league and is coached by Carlos Rivas, a South American professional soccer player and member of the 1982 Chile World Cup team.
This was their third season playing internationally, having played in Mexico twice before and emerging victorious both times.
They had also played in Sweden where they lost a heart breaker in the Gothia Cup final.
Chamberlain, Kirkham and Caitlin have been playing in North Bay under Coach Dwight Anthony, the man who they credit for their success in getting started.
“Dwight has been like our second dad since we were nine years old,” Kirkham said.
“When we first started out we lost every single game for the first two or three years, but now we have a really solid team of girls because we have played together for so long.”
The girls have spent countless hours together on many different fields. Working hard and training for the game they love so much.
“We are like family off the field but once we get on the field we push each other to do better,” Kirkham said.
The girls practice three times a week with their North Bay team and then head south to Toronto once a week for another practice.
“Practices down in Toronto are very very different then the regular training you would see in North Bay,” Kirkham said.
“It’s a lot of skill. If you can breathe by the end then you didn’t work hard enough.”
The girls do a variety of exercises to stay in shape, including cardio training to build stamina for their fast-paced games. They also lift weights and use various work-out machines.
“I think we work so well together because we have played with each for so long,” said Chamberlain.
“We can anticipate each others plays.”
Rivas agrees.
"They do very well, understand the system very well and are very coachable," Rivas said during a telephone interview from his Toronto soccer school.
The girls described their opponents in Mexico as being very skillful with the ball, but not aggressive enough.
“I think we need to learn more tactical skills. The Mexicans have such good foot work. They make it look so easy,” Pawlett said.
The toughest team they said they had to play against was a team from Victoria, Mexico. The girls won by only one goal.
“If we hadn’t changed our system I don’t think that we would have won,” Kirkham said.
The girls explained that their style of game is on the physical side and that being physical was probably one of the biggest contributing factors in their success.
“Here we’re really aggressive, there is lots of shoulder to shoulder where as down in Mexico there isn’t very much contact,” Chamberlain said.
The girls are well on their way in the world of soccer. Next year they plan on going to Spain to try and get scouted, and in July their North Bay team will be playing in the USA Cup down in Minnesota.
“If you like something, don’t quit it. Stick with it," Kirkham said.
"Just because you live in Northern Ontario don’t let that stop you. Look at how many famous people like Steve Omishle, come from North Bay."
