For this soccer team, it comes down to the 'Brick Wall'

Paul Dixon, the Santa Rosa United coach for girls 18 and under, issues fair warning on what it will take for ambitious and talented girls to climb to the same lofty perch his girls currently occupy.

"It can be expensive," Dixon said of club soccer.

"I think my parents spent more on me (in club soccer) than they will in four years of college," said Megan McQueeny of SRU.

McQueeny, who played for Ursuline, was joking. Just to clear that up.

"It can take up a lot of your time," Dixon said.

"You give up a lot of your social life," said SRU's Joan Piasta, who played from Ursuline. "It's a lifestyle."

Those two commitments are not for the faint of heart or pocketbook. That said, the rewards are exceptional for those girls with the talent, the competitive drive and the parental financial and emotional support. Twelve of the 15 girls on the SRU team have a partial or full scholarship to play college soccer, with four of them fully funded.

Play club soccer and see the world, or at least a part of it. Piasta has competed in Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Idaho and Washington and will leave Saturday with her SRU teammates for Honolulu for the Far West Regional tournament of the U.S. Youth Soccer Association. Santa Rosa United is the Cal North champion and will face state champions in Hawaii from all the Western states including Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

It is an all-star group in every sense of the word, made all the more noteworthy that most of the girls have been playing club soccer together since they were 11. Teammates, in adolescence, come and go frequently in all sports. Some lose interest. Some move. Some play other sports. Some find boys, or girls. So to be together for seven years, to stick together while others fade away, produces . . .its. . .own. . .handshake.

Gretel Amman and McQueeny show it off: Each makes a fist, bounces it off the other and then they say together, "Brick Wall." It's something defenders do. It's something, frankly, lifelong friends do, especially ones who will be going to the same college together, to play soccer together, to do it on scholarship, to share the same dorm room together, along with . . .still another SRU teammate, Tiffany Hurst.

Hurst and Amman played for Montgomery, McQueeny was an Ursuline Bear. On August 29th all three girls will move into a dorm room at San Diego State. All three girls are on full athletic scholarships at San Diego State. While it is indeed rare that three girls from a relatively small area like Sonoma County will receive full-ride soccer scholarships to the same college, it is made all that more impressive that they made that decision two years ago.

McQueeny and Hurst verbally committed to SDSU before their junior years in high school, Amman verbally committing halfway through hers. Does it seem a bit unfair that 16-year olds have to make decisions on where to spend their four years in college -- having still two years left in high school?

"The longer you wait," Piasta said, "the less money you get. The colleges set deadlines for you. Yes, there is a pressure to commit. And a lot can happen in two years."

Piasta herself verbally committed to Marquette University in Wisconsin during the summer of 2007 but then changed her mind a few months later and switched to the University of San Francisco, where she will get a 50 percent athletic scholarship. The California weather and the chance to be more of an impact player at USF were the tipping points for Piasta.

Stressed? Of course Piasta was stressed. Who wouldn't be? Big-time colleges with big-time ambitions wait for no one, especially with the state of California having the most marquee talent in the nation, with a recruiters' road trip in the Golden State feeling like he is traveling through the land of plenty.

"My guess is we had 60 colleges at one time or another scout this team," said Dixon on his squad. "At the major club tournaments, you will have 400-450 colleges present. Last year we had 42 colleges offer Lily Sorentino a full-ride."

Sorentino went to Loyola Marymount, rejecting schools like USC and Notre Dame. Sorentino was an exceptional talent, Dixon said, but that's beside the point. If a girl can play soccer and not get burned out by soccer . . .

"Coach Dixon is not a drill sergeant. We haven't lost the love of the game," said Piasta.

This SRU group has been to the state cup five times, won two of their age groups (18s and 17s) and is the deepest team Dixon said he has had. This will be the last time many of them will play together. Seven years is coming to an end, whether it's next week in Hawaii or the week after that in Arkansas at the nationals.

Then 15 girls head to all points on the college compass -- USF, SDSU, Cal, Cal State Fullerton, Drake, Dominican, USC, UC San Diego, Chapman, Chico State, Corban, Wheaton and Cal State San Marcos.

"We all know this was a special time and it's coming to an end," McQueeny said. "We get that."

It's then that the great soccer contradiction will occur.

Santa Rosa United will become Santa Rosa Divided. The players could withstand the price of airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, eating out, long weekends but no matter how good they were, they could never beat the one adversary that beats every athlete. They couldn't beat time, in this case, it is time to go on.

You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5490 or at bob.padecky@pressdemocrat.com.