Three local teens are headed to the Canadian National Soccer Championship. The finals will be in Sydney, Nova Scotia October 8-13.

Andrea Vanderlaan, Ariel Torres and Meaghan Bradica all play for the girls under-16 Burlington Sting soccer team, which won the coveted Ontario Cup Championship on September 6, versus the heavily favoured, two-time defending champions, North London Flash. As provincial champions, they have earned the rite to represent Ontario in the Canadian National tournament.

Although the girls are teammates, they all ended up in Burlington taking different routes. Vanderlaan started her journey in Dundas. She played through the house league system moving onto the select/all star team. With her skills improving the decision was made to play at a rep level thus bringing her to the Sting at U10.

Bradica similarly started playing in the house league system but in the Saltfleet program. She moved on to play with the Ancaster Titans before arriving in Burlington at U14.

Torres found her passage to take the longest. Gilkson Park is where her story begins before progressing to Mount Hamilton. As Bradica moved out of Ancaster, Torres moved in playing with the Titans U14 and U15 teams. As the team stalled at the elite level and wanting more, she tried out for the Burlington Sting and joined the club this year.

All three attend high school locally in Hamilton, Vanderlaan at St. Mary's, Torres at St. Thomas More and Bradica at Cardinal Newman. Like most girls with their talent they found themselves playing for the senior soccer teams there.

Torres helped lead her school to the Senior HWCDSAA indoor and outdoor Championships during the 2007/08 season. No doubt Vanderlaan and Bradica will be ready to challenge her for this year's trophy as the girls are sure to meet up on opposite sides of the pitch.

The girls have also enjoyed participating in showcase tournaments. Traveling in the U.S. they've showed very favourably at the Blue Chip in Cincinnati and at the PDA's in New Jersey. In both cases the Burlington Sting finished with winning records and was rating very highly with the coaches down south.

All three hope to couple their high school grades with their soccer talents, to pursue university scholarships. They have just returned from a USA University Showcase tour, where they were able to play against NCAA university womens teams including a 4-1 win over University of Maine, and 0-0 draw versus Northeastern University in Boston.

What were once childhood dreams of playing for a university team are now beginning to look more like reality, with their continued soccer success stories. But for the immediate future, they are concentrating on capping off a memorable soccer season, representing Hamilton and Ontario, with their sights set on helping the Burlington Sting capture the Canadian National Championship.

You can track their results by visiting www.soccercapebreton.com, and clicking on the "BMO National Championships" link, and then look for the "Adidas Cup U16" page.