July 31, 2005
ORLANDO, Fla. – Just hours before members of the Notre Dame women’s soccer program won a club national championship in a penalty-kick game with FC Indiana, Kerri Hanks and her Dallas Texans teammates were locked in a similar national-championship battle that also extended to penalty kicks. Hanks and the Texans ended up on the wrong end of a 4-3 shootout, a margin that would be duplicated later Sunday night by victorious FC Indiana.
The Dallas Texans club program has a proud and storied tradition of winning USYSA national championships in all age groups (14-19), for both boys and girls. Hanks – who trained and played with the U.S. Under-19 National Team last fall, then began her career as a Notre Dame student-athlete in the spring of ’05 – had played for such a national championship team in the summer of ’03, when the Dallas Texans ’85s won the USYSA Girls-18 title. Notre Dame rising junior midfielder Claire Gallerano also was a member of that team but Hanks was the star, receiving the Golden Boot Award after scoring in a 1-1 tie with Colorado Academy (during round-robin play) and delivering both goals in the title game vs. the Minnesota-based Tsunami Sota team (2-0).
The Golden Boot award is presented to a player in each division who “has the greatest competitive impact in the U.S. Youth Soccer Association National Championships.”
Hanks now has a complete pair of Golden Boots, receiving the award again when the weeklong USYSA tournament wrapped up on Sunday in Orlando, at the Disney Sports Complex. She opened the week with a hat trick in a 4-0 win over a Carmel (Ind.) Commotion team led by ND rising sophomore forward Susan Pinnick before scoring what could have been the gamewinner in the championship show vs. the Stars of Massachusetts.
Sunday’s title game in the Girls-19 division was tied at halftime (1-1) – after goals by the Amy Berend of the Texans ’86s and Katherne Arias for the Stars. Hanks then putt her team back in front with a goal in the 52nd minute and the Texans were just seconds away from the national title when Randi Lynn Bruso scored in the 90th minute to force a non-sudden-death overtime.
Kimber Bailey gave the Texans their third lead of the day in the second minute of OT but Alexandra Caram scored six minutes later for a 3-3 score that eventually led to the decisive shootout.
Hours later, FC Indiana and the California Storm ended regulation in a 3-3 tie as they tried to decide the Women’s Premier Soccer League title. The overtime in Agawam, Mass., then featured a goal by each team (mirroring the Texans-Stars game) and a 4-3 margin in penalty kicks, again matching the result from earlier in the day at the other end of the east coast (it also duplicated ND’s penalty-kick margin over UCLA in the 2004 NCAA title game).
Notre Dame classmates Susan Pinnick (left) and Kerri Hanks had a brief reunion at the 2005 USYSA nationals, with their teams facing off in the Girls-19 division.
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Pinnick – a South Bend native and St. Joseph’s High School product – and the Carmel United Commotion dropped their first game to the Texans before?a pair of tough one-goal losses vs. the Stars and the Colorado Rush. The Commotion previously had been the 2003 USYSA runner-up (in the Girls-17 division) and were one of the top stories among the 48 teams (boys?and girls, in six age groups) assembled at the 2005 USYSA Nationals, making an inspiring return to the final weekend after suffering a major team van accident in the summer of ’04.
Incoming Notre Dame freshman midfielder Becca Mendoza and her Dallas Sting team nearly reached the 2005 USYSA Girls-18 title game, after going 1-1-1 in the round-robin play.