AYSO88 Under 16 Girls Captures First at Downey Open

The victorious AYSO88 Under 16 Girls team with their coaches.

The Glendale Under 16 Girls AYSO soccer tournament team captured its third consecutive first place finish at the Downey Open Memorial Cup tournament on June 25 and 26.

The team, which previously received gold medals at the Pasadena Spring Break in April and at the Glendale Leo Nedeff memorial in May, had a “three-peat,” earning the gold medal in class at Downey.

The girls played five matches over the two-day event. On Saturday, they defeated West Garden Grove, 2-1, then bested Downey 2-1.

On Sunday, Glendale conquered a hopeful Cypress team 2-0 enabling them to move to semi finals when they again were up against Cypress. Glendale proved to be the dominant team, outscoring Cypress 5-1.

In the final match, they found themselves pitted against a technical traveling team from Ontario. The match was particularly grueling as the Ontario team was physically larger than the Glendale team but after 80 minutes of constant back and forth battle, the Glendale G16 girls were triumphant, celebrating their 3-1 victory and raising the championship trophy.

The girls of the Glendale G16 team are Andrea Guerro, Megan Newell, sisters Anais and Leanis Stepanian, sisters Meya and Tyra Williams, sisters Miranda and Eloise Dimase Nordling, Katie Warden, Jojo Shalabi, Leila Afrasiabi, Samantha Davies, Sarah Leggitt, Savannah Arguello, Leana Mosessian, Courtney Iannello and Allie Guscott.

Ed Mosessian and Serj Stepanian coached the team.