Wisconsin Soccer Central

Waukesha Catholic Memorial freshman Emily Cervantes was the Wisconsin Soccer Coaches Association girls Player of the Year this spring. Cedarburg senior Josee Stiever, meanwhile, was the Gatorade Wisconsin Player of the Year.

Both of them are high school All-Americans.

Cervantes and Stiever were among 29 girls on the National Soccer Coaches Association of America Winter-Spring All-America team announced this week. They will be honored Aug. 3 at the NSCAA High School Awards Brunch in Orlando, Fla.

Stiever, a Minnesota recruit, had 11 goals and 16 assists this season in leading the Bulldogs to their first WIAA Division 1 state championship. She was one of eight players named prep All-Americans for the second straight year.

Cervantes scored 50 goals and added seven assists for the Crusaders, who went unbeaten en route to winning their second straight Division 2 state title. She was one of only two freshmen chosen for the All-American team.

• John Burke, who led Catholic Memorial (23-0-1) to its sixth state championship – the second-best total in WIAA history behind the seven won by Whitefish Bay – was named the third-team coach on the Elite Soccer Report Spring All-America team. No state players made the website's honor teams.
• Three incoming University of Wisconsin freshman midfielders – Rose Lavelle from Cincinnati Mount Notre Dame, Micaela Powers of Beavercreek, Ohio, and Kylie Schwarz of Wayzata, Minn. – were named to the ESR Fall All-America team. Lavelle, who had 15 goals and eight assists, was one of 11 first-team selections. Powers, the Ohio Scholastic Soccer Coaches Association Division I Player of the Year after a 20-goal, nine-assist season, made the second team. Schwarz, who scored 28 goals and was the Minnesota Player of the Year, landed on the third team.

BOYS HONORS

Whitefish Bay defender Jake Taylor, a Marquette recruit who was the WSCA Player of the Year last fall, was named to the ESR Fall All-America boys team.

Taylor had four goals and one assist for the Blue Dukes as a senior. Three other Golden Eagles recruits made the second team: Muskego junior forward Andrija Novakovich, midfielder Daniel Szczepanek of Warren Township (Ill.) and goalkeeper Kyle Gress of St. Thomas Aquinas (Kan.).

Novakovich – who had 41 goals and 13 assists and was the Gatorade Wisconsin Player of the Year – is a 2014 recruit for Marquette, while Szczepanek and Gress will be freshmen this fall.

• Milwaukee Marquette, which won its third straight Division 1 state title in the fall, was ranked 20th in the ESR Boys Top 50 for the 2012-13 season. The Hilltoppers (23-1-2), whose only loss was 4-3 to Cleveland St. Ignatius, were 10th in the ESR Fall Top 50 – the overall rankings combine teams from the website's fall, winter and spring seasons. No state girls teams made the overall rankings.

WIAA GIRLS ASSIGNMENTS

The WIAA has posted the 2014 sectional assignments, the first girls tournament with four divisions. A few observations about the placements:

• Brookfield Central is in Division 1, while rival Brookfield East is in Division 2 – in the boys tournament, both schools are in the same Division 2 sectional.
• Reigning Division 1 state champion Cedarburg will play in Division 2.
• Milwaukee DSHA is the only private school in the 64-team Division 1 field, while Milwaukee Pius is the lone private school among the 64 Division 2 teams.
• The top-seeded teams in three of the four Division 3 sectionals will receive byes in the regional semifinals.
• There are at least three programs new to the WIAA tournament, with Amherst/Iola-Scandinavia (Division 3), Melrose-Mindoro (Division 4) and Milwaukee Carmen (Division 4) all in the 253-team field. That total would be the most in WIAA history, one more than the 252 sides that played this spring.
• Prairie du Chien, in the southwest part of the state on the Mississippi River, is in the same Division 4 sectional as Ozaukee, which is 164 miles away in Fredonia not far from the shores of Lake Michigan. And in Division 2, La Crosse Central and La Crosse Logan could play Shawano, which is 147 miles away near Green Bay.

Division 1
Division 2
Division 3
Division 4