Team Chicago Academy-Internacional winger Tori Christiansen has accepted a great scholarship offer to continue her soccer career at Miami University of Ohio. Tori, who plays her prep soccer for Head Coach Julie Bergstrom at Waubonsie Valley H.S., will be part of Miami Head Coach Bobby Kramig’s 2015 recruiting class.

Miami is a perennial powerhouse in the Mid-American Conference. At Miami Tori will be joining Team Chicago Academy-Botafogo standout Dana Miller who is part of the 2013 recruiting class.

Team Chicago Academy-Cruzeiro went to Toyota Park this afternoon to meet their namesake Cruzeiro Esporte Clube from Brazil. Cruzeiro is one of the biggest and most storied teams in Brazil.

The girls had the opportunity to watch practice and then meet the players, the mascot Raposao (The Big Fox), and Head Coach Marcelo Oliviera. At 3pm tomorrow the girls will attend the Cruzeiro-Morelia game at Toyota Park where four players will walk onto the field with the Cruzeiro players during the pre-game ceremony. At halftime the entire team will get a chance to play a scrimmage on the field.

Team Chicago Academy-Botafogo claimed back-to-back USYS Region II Championship titles with a 2-1 victory over FC United. The win avenged Botafogo’s 2-1 loss to FC United in the IYSA State Cup Final 2 weeks ago, which was the team’s only loss in the 2012-13 season thus far.

While Botafogo dominated possession and chances from the beginning it was FC United who struck first in the 13th minute on a wonderful strike from 25 yards out. However, Botafogo kept pressing and 7 minutes later left-back Dana Miller made a commando-raid up the left flank and scored off the far post from a near-impossible angle. Meegan Johnston and Ashley Handwork assisted on the goal.

4 minutes before the interval Botafogo got the eventual game-winner after a phenomenal run by U17 call-up Heather Handwork who blew by the FC United right-back and served in a perfect cross across the top of the 6-yard box. Kendall Wilde made a perfectly timed near-post run to draw the goalkeeper and center-back away from the center of the goal-mouth, and another U17 call-up Katie Ciesiulka beat her mark to the ball and scored easily. The goal was the perfect execution of a training ground exercise that the players have spent countless hours on.

In the second half Botafogo still controlled most of the play, and with better finishing, and save for a couple of great stops by the FC United goalkeeper, Botafogo could have run away with the game. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be, so the last 10 minutes became a bit nerve-wracking, but the girls held strong and came away with a very deserved Regional Championship.

Next up for Botafogo will be the USYS National Championships in Overland Park, Kansas on July 23rd-28th. The two 4-team brackets will be announced next week along with the game schedule.

After another impressive 7-1 win to finish out the round-robin portion of the USYS Regionals in Des Moines, Iowa against Appleton Goal Getters from Wisconsin, Team Chicago Academy-Botafogo faced Michigan Football Club in this morning’s semi-final in a rematch of last year’s semi-final. A year later, and in a different location, but the outcome was an identical 2-0 win for Botafogo.

However, where last year’s semi-final was a hard-fought battle today’s game was total Botafogo dominance from the first whistle. Putting together their best performance of the Spring/Summer, Botafogo had great ball-circulation and peppered the Michigan Football Club goal throughout the game. With a little bit better finishing the game could easily have been a 5-6 goal win.

Kaitlin Johnson got the eventual game-winner in the 6th minute with a far-post shot after a great passing sequence by Bryce Banuelos and Meegan Johnston. With 10 minutes to go Katie Ciesiulka (one of 3 Santos players called up for the event) went on a decisive run down the right flank and served a great ball to Ashley Handwork who calmly tucked the ball away to put the game out of reach. Megan Geldernick earned the shutout in goal.

With the win Botafogo set up a rematch of the IYSA State Cup Final against FC United tomorrow morning at 10am. Both teams have already qualified for the USYS Nationals in Overland Park, KS July 23rd-28th as Botafogo were National League Champions so FC United will claim the Regional spot at Nationals regardless of the outcome tomorrow.

Team Chicago Academy-Botafogo clinched a spot in the semi-final of the USYS Regionals in Des Moines, Iowa with a game to spare.

Botafogo got off to a good start with a 1-0 win over Cincinnati Cup Crew yesterday on a goal by Bryce Banuelos in the 19th minute from Kaitlin Johnson and Hope D’Addario. Megan Geldernick earned the shutout in goal.

In tonight’s match-up against Ft. Wayne Fever Botafogo dominated play and possession from the first whistle. However, the Fever defense proved stubborn to break down, so it wasn’t until the 43rd minute that Botafogo finally found a break-through. AJ Jakuszewski found Heather Handwork on the left flank and Heather served in a great cross for Kendall Wilde to head home with some authority.

Two minutes into the 2nd half Hope D’Addario on a free kick bent the ball over the Fever wall and into the bottom corner of the goal for what proved to be the game-winner. And the flood gates opened after that goal.

Meegan Johnston got the 3rd on a PK that she had drawn with a strong dribble in the box. Ashley Handwork got the 4th from Hope D’Addario’s perfect free kick and then the 5th shortly after from Bryce Banuelos and Heather Handwork. Those two players combined again a few minutes later to assist Meegan Johnston on her 2nd goal of the game, and Meegan finished off a great hat-trick performance with a last-second picture-perfect free kick bent over the Fever wall.

Three goals were scored off the exact free kicks that Hope and Meegan worked on in practice last Thursday. It’s nice to see the work on the practice field pay off in the big games.

Tomorrow Botafogo will face Appleton Goal Getters from Wisconsin in the 3rd and final round-robin game, but the game is meaningless as Botafogo already clinched the semi-final spot. The semi-final will be Tuesday at 8am against a yet-to-be-determined opponent.