Metro

As the indoor soccer season drew to a close, outdoor play had begun in full swing.

Tim Dieter, president of Blair County Soccer Club FC814, states that the area club has continued its growth with the opening of spring soccer. Its in-house program, a fun developmental program that offers opportunities for 4-14-year-olds to learn and enjoy playing the game, has grown to 409 players.

With the elimination of the area AYSO program, which had seen dwindling numbers, look for this program to continue to grow.

The FC814 travel program currently has 52 teams. The Team Energy u-17 girls team continues to be the only team playing at a national level. These 18 year olds continue to compete extremely well at a national level, having played teams from nearly every state, winning back-to-back state championships, earning runner-up status in the national Presidents Cup, winning high level national tournaments and recently just missing out on a trip to the U.S. Youth soccer national championships.

The club has 379 girls and boys competing in every age group from u12-u18 in the regional classic division D1-D3 leagues. The u17 boys FC814 Revolution just won the Presidents Cup and are advancing to the regional tournament. There are three younger teams competing in the academy divisions u9-u11, classic preparation leagues.

FC814 also has 389 boys and girls playing in teams from u10-u19 about to kick off its D5 local travel seasons. There are 1200 active players in total in the club fueled by a large contingent of dedicated volunteer coaches. There are teams and divisions established for every level of play.

This has made acquiring enough fields for home games a difficult task. The Strawberry Hills Project for new fields is currently out for bid. It should break ground this spring and be ready for play in fall of 2026. It will be phase one of a three-phase project and provide two full-sized fields.

The club is currently using Urban Air Soccer Complex, Valley View Soccer Fields, Keith Athletic Field, Greenwood Park, Leopold Park, Duncansville Community Park, AASD IM Field, Roosevelt Field, Mansion Park, HASD Tiger Stadium, Claysburg High School turf field and Saint Francis.

The club will be holding evaluations and tryouts on June 9-12. Register on http://www.fc814.org.

The club will be holding its first annual 5-on-5 Summer Shootout Tournament July 12 at Urban Air Soccer Complex. Registration is currently open with an early-bird special until May 1. There will be two levels of play — recreational and advanced. The club is also looking for local businesses to help sponsor the event.

ö Alex Bartlett also has his group of players at the Northern Blair Soccer Club in Tyrone/Bellwood active in spring play. He has 130 players registered in his recreation league, 30 in his Little Kickers program and 40 playing on travel soccer teams.

ö The u-17 boys Revolution team of FC814 has taken its first step in moving along the line in the Presidents Cup. Jeremy Boland, longtime coach of the Revolution squad, picked up several players from coach Barret Schrock’s Bedford team and put together a Classic Division 1/2 team.

They joined forces in 2022 and continued to improve. By the 2024 season, they had dropped only one game. They signed up to play in the PA West Presidents Cup in Bethel Park and came away as the tournament champions, advancing in June to play in Valley Forge to compete in the US Youth Soccer Eastern Region Presidents Cup. There are teams from 14 state associations involved with the tournament.

The Revolution moved on with a draw with FC814 Celtic team, a 1-0 win over BVB Pittsburgh Premier team and a 3-1 win over the Pittsburgh Football Club. The team had not played together as an entire group since last May. It could only muster several full team practices prior to the tournament but pulled together and bonded extremely well on the field.

ö The recent tragic plane crash in upstate New York, which claimed the lives of all six family members, included the NCAA 2022 Woman of the year, Karenna Groff, who was a former All-American standout soccer player at MIT. She was also a standout in the biomedical engineering field.

Tom Schmitt writes a monthly soccer column for the Mirror.