A Greenfield teen traveled to national soccer championships this summer, becoming a part of history for her team.
Gia Lothrop, 14, plays for Seacoast United, as well as for the ConVal school district. She started playing soccer in second grade with the ConVal Soccer Club, and went over to Seacoast in fourth grade.
“No one from Seacoast United has ever made it into the top eight teams in the country before,” Gia said. “We went to California for a week, and we did well there, and then we had a month off, and then we picked everything up and went to Virginia for a week, and it was really exciting.”
Lothrop had to miss her eighth-grade graduation, but she says “it was worth it.”
Lothrop is looking forward to playing for ConVal High School this fall, and playing for Seacoast again in the spring. Her brother, Paxton, who will be a senior at ConVal this year, also plays for ConVal and Seacoast United.
Gia’s mom, Jana Lothrop, said the competition at both tournaments was intense.
“It was very exciting. They played the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country. They lost to the No. 1 team just 1-0, and these girls were massive,” Jana Lothrop said. “They were from Texas, and they were just adult-sized girls. Gia is a smaller player, and some of the girls were literally twice her size. We kept joking, ‘Are you sure these girls are in eighth grade?'”
Gia Lothrop said her team “had never played against players of that size.”
“They were all just massive. Their strikers were 6 feet tall,” Gia said.
Seacoast United also competed against a familiar opponent, the NESC team out of Massachusetts.
“The last team we played was a team that we play in our regular conference. They are known to do pretty well, and that was a close game, but they won,” Gia said.
Seacoast United is a part of the Girls Academy League, which includes 126 teams nationwide. 36 teams were chosen to compete at the semifinal tournament in San Diego, and eight teams, including Seacoast United, qualified to continue on to the finals in Charlottesville, Va.
Jana Lothrop said even qualifying for the semi-finals was a dream come true for the team.
“Making it to California was a huge accomplishment for them,” Jana Lothrop said. “Only a few teams have ever made it there, and this age group has never made it to the California tournament before. Then there were so many injuries that the team only had 2 subs the whole time. Some of the other teams had whole squads to sub, but on our team, no one really got subbed in California. They all played pretty much the whole time.”
Gia Lothrop said qualifying for the championship in Richmond, Va., was an unexpected thrill.
“It was really cool that we got to Virginia. We thought we would not even win a game in California, but we were able to hold our own there and push through and get the win. The coolest part was we got you got to sign our names on this board, and we got to raise the board showing that we had qualified for the finals,” Gia said.
While Seacoast did not win any games in the final championships, just being there was the experience of a lifetime for the young players.
“Everyone was just so proud of them,” Jana said.
