Hard Work on the Pitch Pays Off

She practices almost five times a week, plays two or more games on weekends, and still finds time to go home, do her homework, and wake up early every morning to catch the bus to Hammarskjold Middle School.

Katrina Nguyen DeMary has been playing soccer for five years, first with the East Brunswick Soccer Club, then with the FC Copa Soccer Club, and after hours, days, weeks, months and years of training almost every day, she is starting to see her hard work pay off.

In September, Katrina was selected to the initial pool of the Olympic Development Program for the U-13 age group.

“The tryouts were at the end of August. There was a total of 4 days of tryouts. I was very excited that I made it,” said the seventh-grader.

The ODP program is part of the US Youth Soccer Olympic Development Program, a national program set forth by the 1978 Amateur Sports Act. The program is used to identify players for the state, regional and national teams. The program is a multi-step process that begins at the state level and continues to regional and national pools and teams.

To make the initial pool, Katrina – who plays offense and midfield - attended four tryouts in the hot summer days of August, but to prepare,  she practiced long, hard hours with her sister and her dad and even scrimmaged with her father’s adult team.