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Sports

Pepperdine Soccer Star's Club Team Wins National Title

Kelsea Smith helps her Camarillo club squad to a shootout victory.

The Eagles SC Under-23 soccer squad, featuring  Kelsea Smith, won 4-2 on penalty kicks Sunday to claim its second straight USASA national title. With the victory over the Kansas City Dynamos at the Lovers Lane Soccer Complex in Bowling Green, Ky., the Camarillo squad became the first team to earn four age-specific national championships.

Smith was one of only three Eagles who played all 210 minutes of
soccer over the weekend, with the temperature exceeding 100 degrees. In Sunday's final, she had the unenviable task of marking the Dynamos' All-American center midfielder Molly Campbell, and Smith held her own.

The championship contest matched the drama of the Women's World Cup final in Germany that took place later that day. With 30 seconds remaining in the second overtime and Kansas City ahead 2-1, the Eagles' Lauren Jackson found Haley Boysen on the wing, and she blasted a shot from 25 yards out that hit the far post and bounced at a 45-degree angle into the net, sending the game to penalty kicks.

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Three Eagles converted shots with low, hard line drives, and when Eagles goalkeeper Chante Sandiford made her third diving save, the team thought they had won their fourth national title. However, the referee ruled that Sandiford had come off her line early and the Dynamos were given another opportunity. When the second attempt sailed high, the victory celebration began.

Smith is the only member of the Eagles who hails from Camarillo. She was a standout at Oaks Christian High in Westlake Village, leading the Lions to three CIF titles while being named to the All-CIF, All-Ventura County and All-Tri-Valley League first teams after scoring 18 goals her senior year.

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Under coach Vince Thomas, the Eagles won two U.S. Youth Soccer national titles – the U-14 crown in 2004 and the U-17 crown in 2007. They are six-time Cal South state champions (2004, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11) and two-time state finalists (2005, 06). Last year, they defeated Arizona Rush Nike in the U-23 final.

"It's amazing what these girls have accomplished, starting when they were just 13," Thomas said. "Now, eight years later, they've won more national titles than any club soccer team in history. From the outset, they relished competing against the best players in the country and came to appreciate that to win at the highest level you must be very good individually and even better as a team."

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