The Alliance Futbol Club 2007 girls team entered the year with a goal of qualifying for U.S. Youth Soccer’s Mid-South Conference regional league.

Mission accomplished.

Beginning the first weekend in February, and running through the first weekend in April, the U13 team will travel to places like Montgomery, Ala., Baton Rouge and Murfreesboro, Tenn., to compete against some of the best youth soccer teams in the country in Mid-South Conference league play. Mike Smith, head coach of the U13 girls, said making the league will go a long way toward improving the girls’ level of play.

“It’s been the goal for the past couple of years, to get to the point where we can get into this league play,” Smith said. “This way, we’ll be able to play quality completion on every league date, and that will prepare us better for our state cup in May. Our ultimate goal is to make it to South Carolina in June for the regional championships, so this will help us out tremendously.”

Rusty Warden, the president of AFC, said making the regional league is a big accomplishment for a small-town youth soccer team.

“Typically the best teams are out of major cities, so for a little team out of Meridian to qualify, it’s a heck of an accomplishment,” Warden said.

His daughter, Addy Warden, is a member of the U13 girls and said she’s looking forward to the challenge of facing teams considered the best in the country in her age group.

“It really means a lot to me that we finally got this chance,” Addy said. “We’re going to have some really good competition. It’s going to be really hard but really fun.”

Most of the girls have been playing together on this same team since they were 6, and Smith said the team’s chemistry has been a major reason for its success.

“When I got the team, it was already there,” Smith said. “Matt Castleberry and Rusty Warden coached them before me, so they were already pretty prepared to be taken to the next level. A good portion of the girls have been together a long time, and we’ve added a few here and there. They know each other really well and know how each other plays, so that helps.”

Addy described the girls as unselfish and said their level of play rises the more they work together on the field.

“I think we all trust each other,” Addy explained. “We all believe we can be greater than we are, and we can accomplish so much more together than we can when we’re not playing as a team. We all get along, and we have strong bonds.”

In addition to chemistry, the level of competition has also contributed to the U13 girls’ improvements.

“Over the last year, they’ve raised their game to another level,” Smith said. “Whenever we go to a tournament, we go to the ones that are high-quality tournaments so the competition will be good and stiff. We’re not going there to win medals, we’re going to play teams that are better than us, because just playing those teams has made us better.”

Going up against even tougher teams in regional league play will also force him to elevate his coaching acumen, Smith said.

“Its a lot of fun (coaching these girls),” Smith said. “It makes me a better coach, because I have to raise my game when we go play these quality teams. When we lose to teams that are better than us, I have to think about what I can do to get these girls better, and it’s just fun because it’s a high level of competition, and that’s what I miss from my days as a player.”

Smith also said the players’ parents have made it easy for him to coach.

“The parents are fun, too,” Smith said. “They’re a bunch of old-school parents who grew up in the days of hard-nosed, hard-work coaching, so they want me to be hard on them and push them, and they let me coach how I want to. When I have that support, it’s super-easy and fun.”

Addy said she and the other players enjoy playing for Smith, too.

“We all love Coach Mike,” Addy said. “He’s really tough on us, and maybe he screams sometimes, but he accomplishes great stuff with us and teaches us skills we’ll need to use when we get older. It’s a joy playing for him.”