Sadie Stein Leads CalSouth Soccer Squad to Far West Tourney Title
By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor
It is fortunate that Sadie Stein has as much fun as she does playing soccer. She practically lives, eats and breathes the sport—and has ever since she started kicking the ball around as a 2-year-old in the Palisades YMCA’s toddler soccer program and shortly thereafter in AYSO Region 69.
One characteristic has been synonymous with Stein’s athletic career from the very beginning and that is winning. She recently returned from Phoenix, Arizona, where she was a member of the 2021-2022 CalSouth Olympic Development Program squad that upset a previously-unbeaten and unscored-upon team from Utah to win the 17-and-Under Girls Far West Regional Championship.
This marks the third time Stein has been recruited onto the CalSouth ODP team, having made the 2019-20 summer/winter teams and 2021-22 winter team. She is also a junior defender and forward on the Palisades High varsity team, which sits atop the Western League standings.
Stein, who lives in the Alphabet Streets and has grown up on fields throughout the Palisades, has been a member of cleverly-nicknamed and colorfully-clad teams in AYSO like the Green Flames, Golden Girls, FC Pali Thunder and FC Pali Apocalypse (in AYSO All-Stars). Upon moving on to club, Stein has suited up for Santa Monica United and Tudela Futbol Club and now for the LA Breakers, where she plays wingback and winger. She previously attended Palisades Elementary and Paul Revere Middle School.
Making USA Soccer’s Olympic Development Program is an arduous process. One must first be invited to a tryout, each of which features 75 of the area’s top players in each age group. Of those, only 18 girls are chosen to travel with the team and participate in a weeklong summer camp in Ojai, preparing to face the best teams around. CalSouth is the region that teams from all the other states are gunning for, and this year was no different, with Utah blitzing through its schedule in dominating fashion on its way to the finals. In fact, the only close game it had along the way was a 1-0 victory over CalSouth in pool play.
Stein and her teammates opened the tournament with a 4-0 shutout of Nevada. After being edged by Utah, they were determined to earn a second crack at Utah, and they eventually did following their 3-1 triumph over Washington and subsequent 2-0 shutout of host Arizona in the semifinals.
The rematch against Utah was everything a championship soccer game should be as the teams battled to the final whistle, but this time it was CalSouth prevailing, 2-1.
In 2014, Stein played for Region 69’s U10 All-Star squad, the Palisades Predators, which reached the finals of the Apricot Jam in Moorpark and later that spring won the Santa Barbara Splash Tournament.
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