Merrick soccer team finishes season with three-pronged victory

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The Merrick Elite Premiere soccer team finished this year’s season with their first three-pronged victory. The all-girls PAL team, which played in the Under-10 division of the Long Island Junior Soccer League this year, took home first place at its Premiere League tournament as well as at the New York State Arch Cup, and finished as finalists in the Long Island Cup.

Team trainer Walter Jaramillo said that this season has been “a wonderful boost for these girls.” Jaramillo was asked to be a trainer by Manfred Kapper, a well-known Olympic trainer who organized a staff of former professional players to work in tandem with Merrick’s PAL teams. Jaramillo began working with the girls when the team was formed two years ago and said that each player has shown improvement since they joined in second grade.

“Long Island is a Mecca for soccer,” Jaramillo said, and began listing the names of professional players have come out of Long Island’s youth soccer teams. These include Danielle Egan, who played for the U.S. women’s soccer team, Giovanni Savarese, who is the head coach of the New York Cosmos and Kevin Anderson, who played for the United Soccer League’s A-League. Jaramillo said that the girls on the Merrick Elite Premier team have proven that they can achieve the same success as the above players.

Prior to Jaramillo’s involvement with the Merrick team, he coached several boys and girls teams in Brooklyn. He said it is important to take a different approach to training the girls than he would to train boys. “You have to be thoughtful,” he said, adding that the girls on the Merrick team are willing to accept challenges, but also need encouragement when it comes to improving their skills. When he must critique their playing ability, Jaramillo said, “It’s not what you say, but how you say it.”

Jaramillo trains the girls alongside Coach Karloff Rosario, whose daughter Lauren is a member of the team. Rosario has been coaching soccer for ten years, starting with his son Brenden’s Kindergarten team. He said that the girl’s victories are meaningful to him because he was able to see that they progressed since they started playing as a team. “You have a group of girls playing together for so long,” he said. “This is definitely meaningful to me.”

The Merrick Elite Premiere soccer team consists of Lauren Rosario, Ariela Napolitano, Keira Sheridan, Isabella Tristaino, Camryn Zubiria, Olivia Ruisi, Lauren Powers, Skylar Mondelli, Alex Aievoli, Jolie Yablon, Katie Vezzuto and Emma Murphy.