Wisconsin Soccer Central

The SC Waukesha Under-14 Blue boys team heads to Las Vegas this weekend to wrap up play in this season's U.S. Youth Soccer National League.

Coach Marcio Leite's side will seek its first points in the competition as they take on Pennsylvania's Beadling, Virginia's Bethesda South and Missouri's Sporting J.B. Marine – the three teams directly ahead of them in the Red Division standings.

SC Waukesha, just the fourth state team to play in the National League in the competition's nine-year history, lost all four of its matches during the first round of games back in December in North Carolina.

• Next season, the National League will include 32 teams in the Under-16, Under-17 and Under-18 boys and girls competition, doubling the fields from the current setup. Each of the four regional leagues, including Region II's Midwest Regional League, will be awarded four automatic berths. The other automatic spots for the 2016-17 season will go to the top four finishers in the Blue and Red divisions in this season's Under-15, Under-16 and Under-17 competition, and the two finalists in those age groups from each of the four U.S. Youth Soccer regional championships this summer. The Under-15 and Under-19 divisions will continue to include 16 teams apiece.
• The Wisconsin Youth Soccer Association is accepting applications for its Mike Kabanica Scholarship until April 1. Each year, the organization awards six $500 scholarships to graduating seniors who are soccer players and exhibit commitment and excellence in high school, in memory of the former WYSA president. Learn more
• The WYSA Annual General Meeting is Saturday, starting at 9 a.m. at Discovery World in Milwaukee. Among the sessions on the schedule is "From Here to There: Wisconsin ODP to an International Career," presented by Shannon Smyth (Mequon/Milwaukee DSHA). Smyth played five seasons of professional soccer in Norway and earned 33 caps for the Republic of Ireland – the nation of her father's birth – before retiring in 2014, and is now the youth technical director for Cedarburg club North Shore United. WYSA AGM schedule (pdf)