Careena Alaoui, Kristen Barclay, Meghan Tveit and Sierra Utton from Bothell and Kenmore were part of an FC Alliance girls U-15 team that took a soccer tournament in Spain by storm July 1-7.

The locals helped their Northshore Youth Soccer Association premier-club squad win its age bracket at the 21st Annual Donasti Cup in San Sebastian with a 3-0 victory over Tolosa FC in the final.

In its semifinal game against hometown favorite Atletico Madrid, the game went into penalty kicks and FC Alliance goalkeeper, Barclay, blocked three of the opposing team’s PKs to secure the shootout victory. Tveit hit the winning PK.

The tournament is one of the largest youth soccer events in Europe, and coach Alex Zahajko (Bothell High coach and instructor) and the FC Alliance girls were one of 387 teams and 7,446 players involved. In addition, there were teams from the five continents, 23 countries and more than 1,000 matches during the tournament week. The opening ceremonies gave the girls a chance to mingle with 10,000 people from all over the world, waving the American flag with gusto.

The trip was made possible by the hard work of all the families, who did an intense two years of fund-raising in order to pay for the international travel.

Was the hard work worth it?  “Oh, yes,” answers coach Zahajko. “I heartily recommend the international travel experience to other teams.”

The team consists of: Careena Alaoui, Kristen Barclay, Alicia Barker, Sara Christensen, Kat Deboodt, Ciara DeGraff, Erin Edmonds, Elizabeth Holmdahl, Alexa Iacolucci, Jordan Lemieux, Rachael Moulton, Meghan Tveit, Sierra Utton, Sophia Viviano and Maria Zahajko.