Six Richmond soccer players will be wearing Team B.C. colours this summer.
Jonah Pang, Liam Robinson, Duva Karunakaran, Olivia Lee, Montana Leonard and Amelia Crawford have been named to provincial teams for upcoming regional and national tournaments.
The 18-player rosters were announced last week by B.C. Soccer and phase three of the Provincial Development Program will commence following this weekend's Premier Cup Championships. The U13 and U14 squads are scheduled to participate at the Prairie Invitational in Calgary, while the U15 and U16 teams head to Quebec for the National Championships.
Pang and Robinson are members of the B.C. U14 team and play for Fusion FC.
Karunakaran will be suiting up for the B.C. U16 squad and also plays for Fusion. Lee (U14, Coastal FC), Leonard (U15, Surrey United) and Crawford (U16, Fusion) round out the local contingent.
Players for the Provincial Development Program have been selected via the EA Sports B.C. Premier Soccer League.
"We continue to be pleased with overall process of identification and assessment of the players within the program," said Michael Findlay, Director of Soccer Development for B.C. Soccer. Over 300 players participated within the evaluation and scouting process as we move into the final phase of the 2013 Provincial Development Program. We continued the scouting process and dialogue regarding recommendations for the program and we once again have yielded an encouraging player turnover of 11 percent from Phase Two to Phase Three which followed a 36 percent turnover within Phase Two from Phase One."
It is the goal and one of the key strategic objectives of B.C. Soccer to continue the growth and provide standards for the recognized Provincial Development Program.
"The Vancouver Whitecaps programming would not be as effective in the identification of players in the province if it was not for the partnership between the Whitecaps, EA Sports B.C. Soccer Premier League and B.C. Soccer's Provincial Development Program. We remain committed to improving our process of scouting, screening and selecting the top talents from such a strong breeding ground", stated Stuart Neely, High Performance Manager for the Vancouver Whitecaps FC the development and community partner of B.C. Soccer and the EA Sports BC Soccer Premier League.
