Twelve Years After the State Cup

More than 12 years after Joyelle Clark nailed a penalty kick to clinch the U15 State Cup, some of the '81-'82 Medford Strikers team gathered for a reunion at the home of Coach Joe Dadura and his wife, Bobbi on Sept. 5.



As is always the case with the passage of a decade, much has happened in the lives of the players and coaches from this very special team. College graduations, marriages, babies. An Olympic gold medal for Carli Lloyd. A doctorate in pharmacy for Lindsay Pote. Mr. D surviving a horrific accident and now coaching a very successful U13 team with the assistance of daughter Kacy Cross and former team member Maureen Carvelli. Coach P getting engaged a few years after the death of his wife of 36 years. Adrienne Dugandzik living in Belgium, Brynn Saunders in California, Lauren Calone in Singapore. Erica DeFruscia back from playing in Germany. Joyelle is a nurse in North Carolina.



Of the 10 women who attended Saturday, eight were with us when we won our first State Cup in dramatic fashion on the final kick of a shootout in the final at Ft. Dix back in May 1997. We won it again a year later at U16, but won only one game at regionals those two years. (Venice Williams' father, Bob, and I were reminiscing over sitting in the hotel bar at the Sheraton on Lake Erie in Dunkirk, NY during the U16 regionals and Bob telling the bartender that our whole group had come from South Jersey to vacation in this town in the middle of nowhere.) After U16 the team continued to get better and won the Dallas Cup, JAGS and other tournaments along the way, but no more State Cups.

Now of course it's exciting to see one of our own, Carli, having such success at the highest level. Never dreamed back then that a girl on our team would go on to play in the World Cup and score the goal against Brazil that won the Olympic gold medal for the United States.

As people began to leave Saturday, as is always the case at reunions, there were promises to keep in better touch (which many do through Facebook) and to not wait more than a decade for the next get-together. We'll see if that is the case, but for now it was good to catch up in person.