RVC soccer star heads overseas

Crystal Dunn signs with Chelsea Football Club

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Cheerio!

Rockville Centre soccer star Crystal Dunn, who led South Side High School to three state titles, is joining the Chelsea Ladies Football Club in England after spending the past three seasons with the Washington Spirit of the National Women’s Soccer League.

Her contract with Chelsea is for 18 months.

The 24-year-old Dunn was the NWSL MVP in 2015 after recording 15 goals and three assists in 20 games, earning her the team’s and league’s Golden Boot Award as the top goal scorer. She was named the league’s Player of the Week a record six times, and was the Player of the Month for August that season.

She had four goals and a career-high five assists last year while splitting time with the Spirit and the U.S. Women’s National Team. She scored both Washington goals in its 3-2 shootout loss to Western New York in the NWSL championship game on Oct. 9, including one in extra time that temporarily gave the Spirit the lead.

At the end of each season, NWSL players have the option to pursue opportunities in other leagues. Dunn decided to make the switch now because there are no upcoming World Cup or Olympic events with the national team that would limit her time with Chelsea. She will remain with the U.S. team.

After visiting London for two days, Dunn came away impressed with the “family aspect” of the Chelsea Club.

“I have a lot of emotions right now,” she said. “I’m very excited. I think this is the time to take advantage of it. It’s going to be a lot of hard work, and mentally, I need to just be OK with being away and being in a new environment.”

Chelsea plays in the Women’s Super League 1, the top league for women’s soccer in England. The team went 12-3-1 in 2016, trailing only Manchester City in the standings. The women’s team works closely with the men’s squad, which is 16-3-1 in the highly competitive English Premier League.

“Having that close-knit relationship to the men’s team is going to be something that I’m not used to here in the States,” she said. “I think that’s what really [attracted] me to the environment that Chelsea has to offer. To be able to train right next to the men and use the same facilities as the men [and] the same team doctors, I think is something that I’m really looking forward to.”

Last year was a special one for Dunn because she played on the U.S. Olympic team in Rio de Janeiro. She appeared in all four games of the tournament and scored a goal in a 2-2 draw against Colombia on Aug. 9. The team’s gold-medal push ended three days later with a 2-1 shootout loss in the quarterfinals to Sweden.

“I think this is what it’s like to be a true American soccer player,” she said. “We always bounce back, so right now it’s all about preparation for [the] 2019 [World Cup]. But it starts with this year. That’s part of why I made this move to Chelsea. It’s trying something new. Do I think it’s going to help my game? Of course.”

In July, Rockville Centre gave Dunn a huge sendoff after she secured a spot on the team. More than 1,000 people — including many young soccer players — attended the event at the Rockville Centre Athletic Complex. Children presented her with a replica of an Olympic torch.

Dunn has been playing soccer since she was 4. She spent her formative years in the Long Island Junior Soccer League, playing for the Rockville Centre Power, the Rockville Centre Tornadoes and the Albertson Fury ’91. She also developed her talent over the course of six years with Eastern New York’s Olympic Development Program, and used it as a springboard to represent the United States internationally.

She didn’t play for South Side Middle School, but led the high school Cyclones to three state titles in the three full years she spent with the team. Dunn missed all but three games as a junior because of her commitment to the U.S. U-17 National Team.

In the 2009 state championship game, she scored three times in the first 20 minutes and had four goals overall in South Side’s 6-0 win over Greece Arcadia. The win capped a 17-0-2 season in which the Cyclones outscored their opponents 31-2.

“[Greece Arcadia] was super-aggressive, and I don’t think they respected us much,” Dunn recalled. “It was one of those games where I was completely fired up, so I went in and kind of had that flair and that fire in me that 20 minutes into the game and we’re up 3-0 and I was like, ‘Oh, cool. This game is nothing like I thought it was going to be.’”

She ended her high school career with 46 goals and 35 assists.

As a junior at the University of North Carolina, she won the Hermann Trophy as college soccer’s best player, and scored five goals, in leading the Tar Heels to the 2012 NCAA championship. She was named the 2010 and 2012 Atlantic Coast Conference Defensive Player of the Year, and the 2013 ACC Offensive Player of the Year, while scoring 14 goals. She was the first three-time ACC Player of the Year since Hall of Famer Mia Hamm.

Dunn was the first overall pick by Washington in the 2014 college draft. Her 2015 MVP season was a tonic to being left off the U.S. World Cup team.

“When my name wasn’t called, it was a rough two weeks — not being on social media and putting my phone aside and really re-evaluating what was going on in my life right now,” she said of the snub. “But the greatest thing was, the season was beginning right around the corner, so I really didn’t have time to sulk too long. When the season kicked off and I started off with a bang, I scored my first professional goal in the second game we had, and from there the goals started just coming.”

Dunn credited her parents, who still live in Rockville Centre, for having the most impact on her successful soccer career.

“There are so many things they do for you that you don’t even realize,” she said. “When you’re younger and you need to be driven to all these games and here and there, you don’t even think to say thank you, because they’re your parents. They should do that. For me, I’m at that age where I show so much appreciation to my parents.”